Current affairs
serious hazard to the growth of a business, leading to the destruction of buildings and contents. Important conversations are needed about whether fire should be more of a factor when measuring a building’s sustainability. It is often the case with value engineering
projects that the drive to get them down to an acceptable price results in compromises being made with buildings. Items are changed and elements such as sprinklers can be left out. In the total build cost, sprinklers are a marginal expense, if not any expense at all. When people realise the consequences, it is too late, and this was sadly the case at the Gardman centre. Another UK company to suffer a similar
catastrophe was Asian snack manufacturer UK Snacks, which went into administration nine months after a major fire destroyed areas of its warehouse. Though there may have been other reasons for its collapse, this fire would have caused disruption to the business and showcased how companies are not always resilient post fires.
Insurance and claims
Although insurance can support replacing equipment, the move to an alternate location to maintain business operations and help with continuity efforts takes an inordinate amount of time and effort. Unless trading can continue quickly, businesses feel the financial pressure of
maintaining cash flow and often struggle. Building fires such as those described occur more often than people expect and their impact goes way beyond that on the owner of the building and its immediate occupiers. The fire safety guidance of the Building Regulations provided by Approved Document B is based on a consideration of life safety impacts. However, as so many fires in the past year have shown, the impact of fire is wider with economic, social and environmental implications. So why are property protection and business resilience not given greater consideration, and why are businesses willing to take these risks? At this time, fire remains the leading cause of commercial property loss. The Association of British Insurers recorded UK business’ fire property claims of £940m in 2018, though businesses should also note that the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters found that 43% of business interruption polices were underinsured by an average of 53%. Also worth noting is the fact that businesses
do not always accurately value what they own in terms of property and often underestimate the amount of time it takes to recover from a fire. In failing to see the real impact of fire, such businesses are leaving themselves exposed. Home Office figures1
show that in the past three
years, fire and rescue services (FRSs) in England have attended 26,800 fires in industrial and commercial buildings.
FOCUS
www.frmjournal.com JUNE 2020
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