Commercial property owners insurance - what steps should you take now winter is here

Commercial property owners insurance - what steps should you take now winter is here

Here in the UK, winter has arrived with a vengeance in some areas. We are seeing storms lashing the country made up of very high winds and heavy rainfall. We have already had flooding across England, Wales and Scotland. Whilst the long term weather forecasters always have an impossible task to predict the next three months weather, one thing they seem to agree on is that we are no in for a mild winter.

If you are a commercial landlord, and have a commercial property owners insurance policy in force you need to take some steps, at this time of year, to try and prevent or at least mitigate the damage that may occur to your building. At the heart of this is that you should not take steps that will cause you to be at risk of personal injury, so you do not need to clamber over roofs and up walls, but you do need to take an objective view of your building and buildings and the potential insurance risks it faces.

Whilst this is not an exhaustive list, these are some of the steps you can take to ensure that your business insurance company do not come back to you and say that you have not taken proper care of the building that they are insuring.

One of the biggest sources of claims is water leaking through a roof. The problem is that this can start out small, and you are not even aware of it. Then over a period of weeks the water continues to seep into the building as the rainfall continues.

At quote stage, you would have been asked to declare, to your insurer (if dealing direct) or to your broker, certain information about the actual construction. If your building is roofed with slates or tiles, and is pitched, then this what insurers consider to be standard construction. If you have any area of roof that is flat, or is of "felt on timber", then this is what insurers will consider to be non-standard. It depends on the insurer involved and the percentage of the roof that is flat whether insurers will apply any specific conditions. For example, if the roof is less than 20% non-standard construction, then this will usually be ok. Although you need to check your particular wording.

Over 20% and this usually will result in a condition being applied that you have to have a competent (ie a roofer or builder) contractor inspect your roof, and rectify any damage, either once a year or bi-annually.

So, as part of your winter check, you may need to ensure that your inspections are up to date. Given where we are in the recession, with building trades still suffering the brunt of UK plc's economic woes, you are more likely than ever to get a contractor to come out and do the inspection at no charge.

One word of advice is, to ask the contractor to take some digital photographs of the roof. This helps you in two ways. The first one is, if the contractor is recommending work, they can show you physical evidence of this, rather than an unscrupulous contractor trying to get you to pay for work that does not need doing. Secondly, you can then ask the contractor to email these to you and you can keep them with their invoice to prove to insurers that you have had regular checks undertaken.

Another issue is water leaking through a building from backed up gutters and drains. Unless you have accidental damage cover, you are unlikely to get any claim settled for damage to the building. You commercial building insurance cover is for a set range of perils, or causes, such as storm, fire and theft. Water leaking in because of debris (such as leaves) in gutters is not an insured peril. So, you should, if you can do it, check that your gutters are clean, or if this is too difficult, you can get a local contractor to come and clear your gutters and drain pipes.

One last point, which does not really relate to storm or high winds, is burst pipes. Most internal pipes in buildings nowadays are lagged properly. You need to, if you can, give the building a once over and check that all the lagging is in place. Over time, building movement or even vermin can cause lagging to "fall off" pipes. As we get into the colder days and nights, there is an increasing likelihood of pipes splitting or leaking as the water freezes and expands. Then, when it melts, the water takes the quickest route out of the pipe because it usually under some form of pressure.

Any form of commercial insurance is a policy to cover the unexpected event, it is not a maintenance policy. If you are in any doubt as to what steps you must take, speak to your broker and ask them what you should do to comply with your insurance policy.

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