Key takeaways
- A total-cost claim asks the reviewer to assume causation for every dollar, which is the one thing they will not do.
- Disaggregating into heads and periods usually produces a smaller number that actually gets paid.
- A global approach is a last resort, only where causation genuinely cannot be separated, and it must be presented as such.
The shape of a total cost claim
A total cost claim takes the difference between tendered cost and final cost and attributes it to the other party's breaches. A modified total cost claim deducts the amounts the claimant accepts as its own. Both are attractive to prepare and difficult to defend, because they carry an embedded assumption: that everything other than the deducted items was caused by the respondent.
In practice, cost overruns on complex projects have several parents — tender assumptions, productivity, subcontractor performance, weather, market pricing, scope growth and the respondent's conduct. A single figure invites the reviewer to test only the weakest link, and there is always a weak link.
Disaggregation, and what it costs
Breaking a claim into heads and periods takes longer and produces a lower headline number. It also produces a number with a much higher expected recovery, because each component stands or falls independently.
- Split by head of claim — prolongation, disruption, acceleration, variations, finance
- Split by period, tied to the windows established in the delay analysis
- Split by cost type, so each figure traces to a ledger, payroll or invoice source
- State separately what the claimant accepts as its own risk, before the respondent has to find it
When a global approach is legitimate
There are situations where the events are so numerous and interwoven that individual causal links genuinely cannot be drawn — dense disruption on a heavily interfered-with work front is the classic example. A global or composite approach may then be the only available route.
Where we use one, we say so explicitly, explain why disaggregation is not possible on the evidence, demonstrate that the claimant's own contributing causes have been accounted for, and show how sensitive the result is to its assumptions. Presented that way it is an argued position. Presented as an ordinary calculation it reads as an attempt to avoid proof.
The commercial point
Claimants often resist disaggregation because the smaller number feels like a concession. On the projects we work on, the disaggregated submission tends to settle, and the total-cost submission tends to generate a second round of expert work.
The objective is money recovered, not quantum claimed.
Written by Elite Analytics Claims Practice. For advice on a specific project or claim, get in touch.
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