Treat a Commercial Property like your Home!

If it is your responsibility, make sure you do the things that many of us homeowners do every winter. The simple things, such clearing the guttering if it’s accessible. If not, arrange a professional company to do this for you. This will increase cost (maintenance cost), but it is much more welcome than the cost of water ingress to the internals of your building. It will be even more costly if the building insurance decides not to pay out, as maintenance is not an insured peril!

You should also lag any exposed pipes to prevent any burst pipes from freezing and make sure any leaves have not blocked any drains or downpipes.

Check your Insurance Policy?

• Do you know what the excess for escape of water is?
• Check you have Flood Insurance, storm & escape of water cover
• Check you have trace & access included with escape of water – the damage caused

Are you Flood ready?

The forces of nature are too great to eliminate this risk. However, you can reduce possible damage & loss by preparing a Plan in case the worst happens. The environment agency website is a useful tool for all property owners, and should be saved on your Phone, Tablet or Desktop device. Did you know you can sign up for Flood Warning? This service is absolutely free & you can visit the site here and get signed up!

You will be able to find out if you are at immediate risk of flooding, be able to check current flood warnings and river or sea levels in your area. This is vital information and allows you some time, to at least prepare.

Get the flooding history of a Property

You can get the flooding history of a property based on Environment Agency records.

Send an email to enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk including:

• the property’s address or a map of the area if the postcode is not known (you can attach a file or link to an online map)
• the period you’d like the report to cover
• your daytime telephone number

You’ll be sent the report by email within 20 working days.

The report is free unless it takes more than 18 hours to put together. If it takes longer, the Environment Agency will contact you. They may decide not to do the report. If they do it, they charge £25 per hour, including for the first 18 hours.

In England, the Environments Agency suggest there are over 2 million properties at risk of flooding from river or coasts alone. There are nearly 3 million properties at risk of surface water flooding. These figures are not only disturbing, they are vast and affect many of us. It is essential to therefore plan for this peril.

Property Insurance Centre Flood Advice

1. Stay up to date with environment agency information – get the app!
2. Never flooded before? Check the long term risk with environment agency.
3. Find out where you can get sandbags in your local area
4. Does your Drains outside the property regularly overflow with rain water – tell your local council now to fix what may be an outdated drainage system.
5. Create your own Flood plan – know what stock, equipment etc can be moved upstairs or to safe place if there is a weather warning.

Property Insurance Centre Burst Pipe advice

1. Make sure you, staff or leaseholders have the number of a plumber
2. Make you, staff or leaseholders know how to turn the water off at the mains
3. Make sure all exposed pipes are lagged

By preparing for the worst, you will limit the damage to your property or business. If you need commercial property insurance to protect you against flood and burst pipes, then please talk to us. We are Commercial Insurance Brokers and have access to a large panel of insurers.