Insurance Isn’t Enough

Insurance alone is not enough. From offices to industrial buildings, healthcare facilities to hotels; the impact of a major fire can be devastating and many businesses never recover. But the cost of fire 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, many of which are ultimately borne by the taxpayer.

Fire Creates a Ripple Effect

Whilst we would like to think of fire as an isolated, neatly packaged event, it very rarely is. Fire is never an isolated incident. When a fire happens in a single home, it may just be a case of one family being displaced, but when you have people living together in multiple residential units, the impact of a fire is much larger. This is the same argument we are making for our schools, hotels and care homes, as well as commercial and industrial buildings.

If we are to learn anything from the Covid-19 pandemic, it is that the crisis has highlighted how interconnected we all are. Similarly, a fire will not only impact one person or one company; its impact radiates out. If we do not do something we will continue to see large, dangerous, destructive and costly fires. Moreover, the trend for larger industrial and commercial buildings means we could see even larger fires with more business and supply chain impacts, local disruption and job losses. These and fires in residential and institutional buildings all place burdens on local authorities with costs ultimately borne by the taxpayer.