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< PreviousBY ALAN JAMES, MSc DANTHERM GROUP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER WHAT IS IT? " Environmental, Social, and Governance are a set of standards used to monitor an organization’s behaviour – a tool that is typically used by investors analysing a business or during potential contract negotiations with customers and other stakeholders. So why is it important in the world of Restoration? Sustainability and environmental impact are at the forefront of daily living, whether it be the recycling you do at home, the type of engine that drives your motor vehicles, the number of trees you plant to carbon offset, or the amount of power your drying equipment consumes; all these factors, and more, have an impact on the world around us and the carbon footprint we create. The BDMA Conference centered around ‘Sustainable Resilience’, opening the door to discussions about how we can influence change within the fire and flood restoration sector. HOW CAN EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER’S HELP YOU? Over the past few years, we have seen significant changes to F-Gas Regulations (2020) that restricted the use of fluorinated greenhouse gases in portable dehumidifiers, a change that reduces the overall carbon footprint of the equipment produced and the impact that it has when gas is released into the atmosphere by defective equipment. As industry leading providers of restoration services, you will be faced with challenges from stakeholders to show how you have reduced carbon footprint and overall environmental impact – F-Gas is one area to focus on. Another area of focus is energy consumption, a topic that we are all more acutely aware of due to the rising cost of electricity and gas. In the past, many contractors wouldn’t give much consideration to the amount of power that equipment uses. We now live in a world where a heater or heated desiccant can cost as much as £16/day to run, rising closer to an estimated £25/day in October 2022. This is where remote monitoring solutions come in to play, enabling contractors to remotely view jobsite data and then switch equipment off from the comfort of their offices, saving energy, reducing costs, and reducing the overall carbon footprint of their drying processes. Remember, 1kWh of electricity consumption equates to approx. 0.233kg CO2e – so every kWh saved counts. Remote monitoring also leads on to another topic – reducing site visits and reducing the number of miles your vehicles spend on the road. With diesel and petrol prices escalating, the ability to reduce your number of site visits by an average of 30- 50% can have a significant impact on the amount of CO2 emissions that your daily activities create. Over the last 18 months, we have worked closely with contractors to re-educate their workforce, both on the road and in the back-office, to embrace the benefits of remote monitoring and the results now speak for themselves. Finally, investment in modern and innovative drying solutions provides you with a diverse range of tools that enable you to save more materials, drying in situ rather than stripping out and replacing. Educating the restoration market to continue embracing innovation is critical towards ensuring that we push a balanced, sustainable, and environmentally conscious approach to drying in the coming years. 10 GUEST FEATURE GUEST FEATUREOne of the presentation sessions at this year’s British Damage Management Association (BDMA) Conference focused on the change brought about by Flood Re’s Build Back Better (BBB) initiative and how we need to respond as an unified industry. The BBB scheme provides funding of up to £10,000 for homeowners to have flood resistance and recoverability measures installed by their insurers as part of their claim when their homes have been flooded. Recent flash flooding across the UK was the first event where BBB became available, so this is a live issue for the insurance sector. While a sustainable approach should apply to all claims, it is essential that the restoration industry embraces the BBB initiative to support clients and their customers, so we understand what is expected. Embracing Flood Resilience What are the risks if we don’t embrace flood resilience? Insurers must be confident that their partners are agile and can respond quickly to changes in the market, so it’s essential that we’ are up to speed and ready to manage the BBB requirements. Restoration companies must have awareness and knowledge of resilience so technicians can identify when flood-resilient materials and products are already installed in flood- stricken properties. And this needs to happen during the first site visit, wherever possible. Some specialist resilient measures, such as flood doors and barriers, are more obvious. But other specific products that prevent the building from being unduly damaged by flood waters and assist in a quick recovery are not quite so easily identified. Stripping out previously installed resilient measures during any subsequent restoration process could cause insurers to seek recovery of such abortive costs. This wouldn’t reflect well on the organisation involved. It is also important to understand the customer’s knowledge of flood resilience and discuss the restoration plan with their surveyor or claim owner. We have an opportunity to demonstrate the industry’s responsiveness to a changing climate and market needs – let’s embrace it. BUILD BACK BETTER BY IAN GIBBS, SEDGWICK SUMMARY - THREE PRACTICAL STEPS TO EMBRACING FLOOD RESILIENCE: EDUCATION ADJUST THE PROCESS CONTINUED TRAINING /CPD Technicians should undertake the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) Property Flood Resilience Foundation Training course. This online programme provides the basic flood resilience knowledge that technicians require. Embed accurate identification and management of resilient measures Keep Technicians up-to- date on new products and techniques in flood resilience 11GUEST FEATURE GUEST FEATURE12 Over the last few years, I have been involved in several property flood resilience-focused projects These projects have taken me all around the country to meet people who have been flooded. Part of my brief was to conduct research for my E-Mag. This E-Mag is packed full of inspirational stories of how homeowners and businesses have ‘Built Back Better’ to enable their properties to recover quickly after a flood. I have also visited communities at risk of flooding with the Floodmobile. This is effectively a house on wheels that has around 50 different interventions that demonstrate how to keep the water out of a property, or help it recover after a flood. I have spent a lot of this time listening. We have two ears and one mouth, and it is so important when working with communities and individuals that we use them in that order! Listening to people’s experiences truly helps me to continually learn and, in turn, to drive change. After many years of campaigning, I am delighted that Flood Re has introduced it’s ‘Build Back Better’ (BBB) scheme. This offers homeowners the chance to install Property Flood Resilience measures up to the value of £10,000 when repairing their properties after a flood. This means that the next time the area floods, their home will be better prepared to keep as much of the water out as possible or make recovery (and returning home after a flood) much easier, quicker (days rather than many months) and safer. It is however, my belief that further changes still need to be made in relation to sustainability. Far too much 'stuff' is thrown into the skip after a flood with no thought about whether it can be sanitised, recovered, or restored back to its pre-flood state. For example, my research has taught me that hardwood can survive a flood. I have heard many a story of how a A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO FLOOD RECOVERY BY MARY LONG-DHONAU OBE GUEST FEATURE GUEST FEATUREgrandfather clock continues to tick, despite standing in cold floodwater and once its dried out and had a polish, it can be as good as new. I have been shown furniture that has been under two metres of water, which has recovered after drying out. Solid wood doors and kitchens recover well a great sanitiser). So why throw them out? I have also been told of a case where six unaffected chairs that cost over £650 each were taken outside and chopped to pieces, just because the matching table was damaged by the flood water. There are companies that can restore tables so why make six perfectly good and expensive chairs into firewood? Other people have told me that those who were stripping out their flooded homes had insisted on skipping wet belongings that people really wanted to keep. Sadly, in my experience, it’s often the case that when a person has been flooded, they just don’t have the emotional strength to argue (and it is only later that they wish they had.) There are now many companies that specialise in restoring flood-affected items, even books and documents. I have been around one such organisation and have seen wedding dresses, Granny’s crochet blanket with huge sentimental value, handbags, trainers and even Ugg boots brought back to pre-flood state. We simply can’t continue with a ‘throw everything away’ mentality! It doesn’t support our drive towards sustainability and our already overused landfills are put under extra, often unnecessary stress. I lost so many memories to flood water and so have thousands of people like me; things that today are perfectly possible to save, and restoration costs are less than you may think. I therefore believe that conversations need to be had, and this ‘chuck it all out’ mentality must be stopped, as a matter of urgency. Opposite: Mary Long-Dhonau OBE presenting at the BDMA Conference 2022 Below: Mary and FloodMobile it’s often the case that when a person has been flooded, they just don’t have the emotional strength to argue (and it is only later that they wish they had.) " 13GUEST FEATURE \ REFLECTIONS ON SUSTAINABILITY The recent BDMA conference was a great success. We were very proud that Davis French & Associates were part of a celebration of everything our industry can do. There was certainly a significant mix and diversity of skills and expertise all in one room. It was a fantastic opportunity for us all to build greater relationships with each other, with our customers, and to demonstrate the true value of what we all can offer. Sustainability was obviously the key conference theme. It was great to see so many ideas and initiatives being discussed in the auditorium, during the breakout sessions and in the technical demonstrations. There are a wealth of solutions in place in our industry to tackle the problems we are facing both now and in the future. Insurers have also stated their dedication to sustainable best practice, with many insurers now publishing annual sustainability reports, as well as a renewed focus on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) measures. Whilst our industry has solutions, and insurers have an established philosophy on sustainability, the challenge we now face is to bring this into practice. In our opinion, measures of sustainability currently in place are not far reaching enough and exclude the areas that are having the biggest impact on an insurer’s carbon footprint. Typically, annual sustainability reports only go as far as an insurer’s internal operations. Whilst electric fleets, reduced energy usage across office spaces, and incentives to renew and reuse (e.g., reduced use of plastics across an office-based workforce) are all valuable in their own right, simple internal measures ignore the ‘carbon elephant’ in the room - the actions of an insurer’s supply chain. More often than not, the activity of external suppliers is a small print footnote in sustainability reporting, excluded from calculations due to either a lack of data, or any attempts to interrogate sustainability measures within the supply chain. Whilst this will appear as a criticism of perceived inaction, rather our aim is to highlight that this is a necessary action to ensure that ESG initiatives don’t remain as on-paper philosophies but become lived everyday values. Take Escape of Water (EOW) claims as an example. According to the ABI, residential and commercial water claims cost insurers a combined £981m in 2019. In 2020, the average EOW claim cost was £3,170 per claim, representing a 50% increase on the average cost in 2014. This is where we come to the ‘carbon elephant’ in the room. Just how much of these claim costs were spent on strip-out and reinstatement, and what was the overall carbon impact? Using some basic carbon calculations that look at the footprint of the average house, your standard 10x10m house will have nearly 2,500kg of plaster used in its construction. What sustainability measures often fail to consider is embodied carbon – the carbon cost of producing and transporting the materials for an existing structure. Stripping out the plaster of the average home creates 300kg of CO2 ‘pollution’ purely from embodied carbon. We can then add to this the further carbon footprint of the CO2 generated from strip-out processes, transporting and disposing of waste, plus the embodied carbon of the new materials required. This is where our industry needs to put its best foot forward in raising an important question with insurers; how can ignoring the most carbon-intensive processes within your supply chain meet ESG goals, and what changes can be made to move to a ‘restoration first’ philosophy on property claims? Relying on traditional practices of allowing strip-out without consistent scrutiny is not only unsustainable for the future, it is also having a significant short-term impact. The current crisis within the building industry with material supplies, leading to spiralling costs and ever extending lead times is resulting in poor policyholder experience in the short term. Not only is the claim life cycle increasing, but so are costs. Builder networks will often point to their sustainable credentials, which is admirable, but philosophically the process of ripping out and starting again on a property claim flies in the face of a sustainable agenda. The BDMA conference highlighted the need to work toward a sustainable future, and so many of our members have the skills and capabilities to make this happen. We now need to go beyond conversation and put this into practice. The starting principle of any claim, from insurers down to suppliers, should be to reduce, reuse and recycle. To reduce strip out and disposal through drying and decontamination, reuse whatever can be salvaged from a property, repair or restore wherever possible, and to have more stringent scrutiny of what is ending up in landfill, and how it is being repurposed or recycled. Hard discussions lie ahead; balancing sustainable value with financial value and policyholder satisfaction is no easy task. Across the insurance and damage restoration industries we have the people, the skills, and the moral impetus to make this happen. Let’s get going on working collaboratively for a better future. 14 GUEST FEATURE BY DR. GREG FRENCH, DAVIS FRENCH & ASSOCAITES GUEST FEATURE10 BDMA AWARD WINNERS 2022 15 CLAIMS TECHNICIAN OF THE YEAR: KIERON LOWE OF DASA Just a few weeks into his training, the world went into lockdown. This could have set a lot of people back, but not Kieron - he describes this time as: “One of the most challenging periods in my career. I had to really start putting my training into practice before it was even completed. A great deal of learning was certainly on the job as our enquiries more than doubled in the space of a week. Training continued of course, but around the day job!” Last year he became BDMA accredited, just one year into a role in a new industry - this was a fantastic achievement for him. Kieron has developed and grown a division in an industry that was completely new to him. In just two years he has driven down costs, improved claim lifecycles, developed a new and improved contractor network, and developed a new career path for DASA employees. Kieron’s key role is to lead and expand the DASA Leak Detection team – from one person, the team has grown to six, enquiries have tripled and a number of new high profile clients have been secured. In terms of satisfaction rates, the team consistently achieves a 99% rating and regular customer testimonials on the standard of service. This is a credit and testament to Kieron’s qualities. BDMA AWARD WINNERS 2022 Kieron joined DASA two years ago after spending over 20 years in the motor insurance industry. Starting a role in a new sector, he certainly had a lot to learn. His role as Leak Detection Manager was to develop and progress the mains water claims division – a tough task with no previous knowledge of this area of the industry. Bottom Left: Award winner Kieron Lowe accepting his award at the BDMA Conference 2022 Below: John Thompson, BDMA Chairman, Keiron Lowe, DASA, and Kathryn Rodgers, Harwell Restoration, award Sponsors08002851447 WATERDAMAGE REMEDIATIONEXPERTS Operating24/7/365 RapidResponse Survey&Reports FullyAccredited ProfessionalDrying RatedExcellent flooddoctor.co.uk AtFloodDoctorweofferanallinoneservicefollowingwater damagetoaproperty. Weareexpertsinbothremediationandrestoration.17 THE FUTURE OF LOSS ADJUSTING BY CHRIS HALL, QUESTGATES Loss adjusting is a relatively new profession, the term only being used for the first time in the 1940’s. However, the role of loss adjusters today bears little resemblance to that of the pioneers of our profession. For the first 50 years, our main purpose was to establish policy liability. We never recommended builders or suppliers and the adjuster focused on ensuring that the insurer paid the amount required to put the policyholder back to the same position that they were in pre loss, making allowances for “wear and tear”. While the advent of “new for old cover” in the 1980s saw some changes occur as insurers increasingly sought to increase market share by focusing on their claims service, the first concept of project managing a claim using contractor networks under formal contracts and charging agreed rates did not occur until 1993. This marked a major shift in responsibilities. I led a team which introduced this new concept, and whilst our original intention was to improve service and ensure that costs were controlled, the subsequent drive to put all claims through this supply chain to meet volume guarantees and generate retro revenues, ultimately this was perceived to have driven bad behaviours with too many parties, other than those doing the work, taking a share of the revenue. As a result, the rates paid to the actual tradesmen doing the work became unsustainable and the quality of works often dropped leading to increased complaint ratios. Fast forward to today, and our profession looks very different. We must be able to show that we “treat customers fairly”. Increasingly and understandably, insurers require adjusters to demonstrate that they add value to their claims proposition by controlling costs and improving customer satisfaction. We are using tools like video technology to enhance the triage process, enabling us to reduce elapsed times and provide a better level of service. Our expertise and experience have become even more important, particularly to support policyholders to recover from a loss and make the right decision regarding options for claims settlement. This could be cash, allowing the customer to use their own tradesman or introducing vetted, managed suppliers. So, what of the future, given that 80% of all CILA qualified loss adjusters are over 50 years of age? If we are to embrace the benefits arising from advances in technology, we need to attract people with the right skills and personality and train, develop and retain, them. Legislation and policyholder requirements will require insurers to handle claims and repairs utilising sustainable and resilient methods whilst continuing to improve customer satisfaction. It’s going to require a more collaborative relationship between insurers and loss adjusters, and our profession must continue to evolve and maintain its position at the “sharp” end of delivering insurers’ promises. GUEST FEATURE GUEST FEATURE18 BEING PREPARED FOR FLOODING, RESILIENCE MEASURES, AND TRACKING THE EVIDENCE BY GRAHAM BROGDEN MBE, GJB CONSULTANCY GUEST FEATURE With approximately 6 million properties in the UK currently at risk of flooding, and climate change threatening to increase that number, now is the time to be prepared by adapting our properties with Property Flood Resilience (PFR) measures. This includes measures to help prevent flood water entering the property, such as barriers, flood doors and automatic airbricks. It also involves adapting the property with measures that can withstand the water and recover more quickly following a flood. These are known as “recoverability measures”. It is, however, vital that these measures are specified, fitted, and maintained correctly to ensure they function as designed when they are most needed. The industry Code of Practice, which was released in February 2020, should be adhered to when designing and installing these measures. Flood Re will cease to exist in 2039, and the insurance industry will then revert to risk reflective pricing, meaning that the current set rate for flood cover will no longer exist and that the cost of cover will be determined by risk. The transition for that move has already started, and the recently announced Flood Re “Build Back Better” initiative is a crucial part of that transition. This is a real breakthrough in insurance, meaning insurers who have signed up to the scheme can spend an additional £10,000 per property to make it more resilient after a flood. But how will property owners be able to provide the evidence of what they have done to make the property more resilient and more importantly how will they prepare and maintain those measures? The Flood Compliance Platform has been developed to address important aspects of resilience, to help the property owner to be aware of the flood risk and prepare for the event. The platform is made up of three main parts: Resilico pro is a platform to be used by professionals within the PFR industry. This will allow these professionals to carry out a survey with a systematic approach that will capture, store, and evidence the decisions they make, and record the details within the platform. This information forms the audit trail and evidence base that will be required for the market to transition. Resilico Connect is an App for the property owner. The App will deliver bespoke flood warnings to the customer specific to their location providing both surface water flood alerts and river/coastal alerts. The property owner will also have the functionality to develop their own bespoke flood plan. This will be done by following some simple steps. Images and videos can also be stored within the App. All this information will be available to their insurer and others as evidence of what they have done and continue to do through planning and maintenance to reduce their risk of flooding. Resilico Report is the reporting platform that will be used to create bespoke dashboards for easy analysis of the risk mitigation. GUEST FEATURE WWW . RESIlICO . COM FOCUSED DRYING Drying a water-damaged room has moved on from the days of lighting a fire and opening the doors and windows. The industry should no longer leaves a dehumidifier in the middle of the water-damaged room with a couple of air movers and hope for the best. This simply wastes expensive energy and contractors should be increasingly aware of the need to reduce both their carbon footprint and the time it takes to complete the job. Saving labour costs and making effective use of expensive assets is increasingly important in a competitive market. Focused or targeted drying is a good start, but as we move towards a more sustainable, cost-focused industry, it’s not enough. Using tenting for target drying ensures that the dehumidifier only dries the wet parts of the room. This avoids potential secondary damage caused by extracting too much moisture out unaffected areas of the room. In short, drying a whole room to remedy water damage in only a part of it is remarkably inefficient. Targeted drying uses plastic sheeting to create a sealed chamber, or ‘tent’, around the wet area of the room. This saves significant amounts of energy by not drying the 90% of the room that wasn’t affected by water damage - but even that approach is inefficient. The inefficiency arises when the tented area is fed from outside by dry air from a desiccant (absorption) dehumidifier, the best choice when drying dense materials like brick or block walls. As air is blown into the tented area, the same volume of air must escape. This positive pressure system means that the drying air is taken from the whole room as well as from outside if the windows are open. That makes the whole room part of the drying regime, with the dehumidifier forced to dry potentially damp air before being fed into the tent. If the air feed in can’t be controlled, the drying can’t be controlled either. The answer is to create a negative pressure system by moving the dehumidifier inside the tent, creating a controlled environment. Let’s talk maths. In our positive system, a normal three port desiccant dehumidifier moving 150 cubic metres per hour is probably generating 120 cubic metres of dry air for drying and using 30 cubic metres to dry its wheel. In a typical one cubic metre tent, the air is exchanged 120 times per hour. However, if the tent is in a room with a total volume of 60 cubic metres, the air in the room outside the tent is recirculated twice – to no purpose. In a negative system, the air in the tent is exchanged only 30 times but is recirculated 120 times per hour, each time becoming drier. This significantly increases the efficiency of the drying regime and reduces energy usage. Taking this a step further, dehumidifiers are available that use a separate air stream to dry the wheel; they work at an equal pressure and air in the tent is not exchanged with the air in the room. The dehumidifier can be placed inside the tent and the ‘regen’ air to dry the wheel pumped into the tent and back out. Alternatively, the dehumidifier can be placed outside the tent and the air taken from the tent to the dehumidifier and back. This means the drying tent or chamber can be sealed around the ducts to give maximum efficiency. Air recirculation 100%, air exchange 0%. Now how efficient is that? 19GUEST FEATURE BY JERRY GIBBS, CONSULTANT AT ECOR PRO LIMITED GUEST FEATURENext >