Speaking at a day of seminars organised by the ASFP, the UK
Property Risk Manager of the insurer expressed his deep concern at how the focus on designing buildings that are exclusively focused on ensuring life safety — and not also in protecting the fabric and contents of the building — is costing the UK huge amounts of money.
Fire minister Brandon Lewis also spoke at the event and praised the fire sector and fire and rescue services for their excellent work in reducing deaths from accidental fire — down 36 per cent in ten years to 168. But while deaths from fire have been falling, the cost of fire has been going up, said Smith.
Let there be no doubt that we as an insurance industry are increasingly concerned at the increase in fire losses. They are running at the highest figures since records began.
The total cost of fires is increasing at an alarming amount. The total cost of fire costs my insurance GB pound 1-1.3bn a year. On top of that business interruption costs are high. The cost is increasing beyond inflation.
He went on to explain that insurers are looking to reduce the extent of fire and minimise its effect on the contents of a building, as well as looking to improve the safety of fire crews entering in the event of a fire.
What I’m hearing more and more from Fire and Rescue Services that is alarming — after dealing with a fire, we’re not dealing with a fire in a building, but a building that is on fire. We’re seeing more open plan buildings that allow more rapid spread of fire and an increase in out of town developments where fires can spread for longer without detection.
Smith then showed the audience an image from an unnamed fire safety engineering website that refers to the savings made using a fire safety engineering design process. By omitting the use of sprinklers, reducing levels of compartmentation, removal of fire-rated glass, and a reduction in fire-rated facades, the designers claimed they could save money while still keeping the quality of fire protection.
“Designing for life safety is only part of the solution,” he went on to say, while also emphasising that fire engineering in and of itself was not the problem, but if insurers were involved in the fire design at the “earliest possible opportunity” then they would be able to help reduce their exposure to risk, and therefore also the cost of premiums.
Is fire engineering leaving the contents of buildings at greater risk?
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There was no mention of how long the site has been active or if the changes are allowed according to fire codes. I’m sure that in some cases you can design buildings to need less protection but if it doesn’t meet code then it’s only a matter of time until it costs you 3 times as much to fix. I also wonder how much of the cost is due to the changing usage of buildings. I see many spaces that were built for storage or industrial use being taken over by office space. Things change greatly when you have 30 people and… Read more »
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Obviously an architect designs for a certain use, but of course in the liftetime of a building it’s use may change several times. That is up to the building occupants to be aware of and for the owners to make sure it is dealt with as the use changes.
In the UK there is no requirement to fit sprinklers in most new buildings. The scope of the building regulations is fire safety, not property protection. There is statutory guidance in the form of Approved Document B which building designers can follow but they are free to find another way to meet the fire safety regulations. For those not familiar with this, there are five fire safety regulations and each is a sentence. The statutory guidance runs to hundreds of pages but it is an optional approach to meet the regulations. Conceptually, if everyone gets out safely but the building burns to the ground, that is… Read more »
@ safeNsane, you are accurate in making valid points as always.Usage of a building matters a lot when it comes to reducing loss of life and property in case of incidents of fire.As you have mentioned, what the building holds inside is vital for predicting the spread of fire.It should be the concern of both the owner of the building and the new occupants to bear this in mind.
While there can be no question in preferring human life to material property, we can’t completely discount the loss of property resulting in high premiums to insurance companies. If property can also be saved along with life, it would be real success.Insurers must come up with a viable collective plan to provide an alternative to fire safety approach currently followed.