Current affairs
other reasons for the company’s unfortunate fate, the fi re would have caused disruption to the business and the case shows how companies are not always resilient after fi re. Although insurance can support
replacing equipment, the move to another location to maintain business operations and support continuity efforts takes an inordinate amount of time and effort. Unless trading can continue quickly, businesses feel the fi nancial pressure of maintaining cash flow and often flounder.
Building fires such as these occur at a
higher frequency than people expect and have an impact that goes way beyond that of the owners and immediate occupiers. The fi re safety guidance of the Building Regulations (provided by Approved Document B [ADB]) is based on a consideration of life safety impacts. However, as recent fi res in the city centres of London, Belfast and Glasgow have shown, the impact of a fi re is wider with economic, social and environmental implications. So why is property protection and business
resilience not given greater consideration, and why are businesses willing to take the risk?
Real impact
Fire remains the leading cause of commercial property loss. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) predicts that UK businesses could stand to lose £10bn between 2010 and 2020 as a result of fire. However, businesses should take note of fi ndings from the Chartered Institute of
Loss Adjusters (CILA), which found that 43% of business interruption policies were underinsured by an average of 53%. At the same time, the businesses are not
valuing what they own in terms of property and think they are going to recover a lot quicker than they do. They are failing to see the real impact of fi re and leaving themselves exposed. Home Office figures2
FOCUS
show that the fire and rescue
services in England have attended 26,800 fi res in industrial and commercial buildings in the past three years. From offi ces to industrial buildings, healthcare
facilities to hotels, the impact of a major fi re can be devastating and many businesses never recover. But the cost of fi res in industrial and commercial buildings goes far beyond the expense and impacts on individual businesses and insured costs. Fires are the cause of significant economic, environmental and community costs, which are ultimately borne by the taxpayer. In order to reduce the risk to life and the
degree of damage in a fi re event, the inclusion of automatic sprinkler systems are proven time and time again to be both effective and effi cient in a wide range of fi re scenarios and building types, affording greater levels of fire protection to people, property and the environment.
Sprinkler reliability
There is clear evidence that sprinklers work. In fact, the National Fire Chiefs Council and the
www.frmjournal.com OCTOBER 2019
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