Community Resilience to Extreme Weather - First Annual Assembly Report - Tony Boobier

The topic of subsidence damage featured strongly at the first Annual Assembly of CREW (Community Resilience to Extreme Weather) held at Greenwich in April. CREW is one of the many projects overseen by the government group Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which aims at integrating academic research with significant existing or prospective issues in the UK.

The background behind this initiative rests not with dry weather, but rather with wet weather. The flooding of 2007 led to Britain’s largest peacetime emergency since World War 2, and it is now commonly recognised that the probability of similar events is expected to increase. Extreme weather is not only limited to flooding, but can also lead to other hazards for example heatwaves, storms and of course subsidence.

With changing climates and the prediction that there will be wetter winters, warmer summers and greater frequency of extreme weather, this initiative goes beyond the impact on insurers business and the public purse, but concentrates on how local communities interpret warnings put before them and understand the real impact to them, and consequently prepare themselves accordingly.

The project has been established to gain a better understanding of the impact of future climate change on extreme weather events, and to develop a tool for improving local community resilience, in other words, how the community should react to a peril–related community problem.

The research focuses on understanding the probability of such events, and their likely socioeconomic impact. Previous reports such as the Stern Report have historically concentrated on the macro–position but have offered little guidance at regional or sub-regional level. The CREW consortium – comprising 14 Universities, 5 South East Boroughs, insurers, and other agencies such as ABI and Defra – are investigating impact at a local level on homeowners, SME’s and on local policy makers. The intended outcome is the creation of a web-based portal which provides a facility for presenting probable extreme weather events for a range of scenarios, and for the evaluation and eventual communication of coping mechanisms.

It is easy to view such an initiative with cynicism, but diffi cult to argue with the notion that Extreme Weather events necessarily engage stakeholders at all levels. The picture seems clear in respect of storm or flood, when the emergency nature of the event and the risk to health and safety has an obvious impact. But the slow rate at which subsidence damage occurs might suggest that, as a topic, it doesn’t sit comfortably with wet weather issues. The speed of flood damage contrasts heavily with the gradual nature of foundation movement. (There’s obviously a correlation with heatwaves, but for the purpose of this study the topic of heatwave is more focused on mortality levels.) Why subsidence should even be considered within this group perhaps bears further explanation.

To date there are three key elements to the project, but these are likely to be extended further into the 3-year life of the project:

Communication Strategy
More precisely, the development of effective communication of risk and response through the creation of an internet-based portal called WISP (the ‘What-If –Scenario Portal’). It is likely that this will not only provide an indication of the likelihood of damage, but what to do in the case of damage occurring. There are likely to be clear correlations between this and insurers’ own subsidence maps and underwriting strategies.

Is there a risk that with greater certainty of subsidence prediction, properties located in high risk areas will be ‘red-lined’ as being uninsurable, and if so, what will be the impact on home values? And if damage occurs, what advice will be given to homeowners, and against which insurers’ (and loss adjusters’) performance could be benchmarked.

Technical Solutions
Secondly – a review of the technical solutions for adapting UK properties for damage, either as a proactive measure or after the event. Advice could even be given about tree management to avoid damage – an area which some would regard as highly contentious. Best practice investigation and repair processes might now need to stand the test of ‘community validation’ before they are accepted as suitable processes to be adopted, regardless of the view of the insurer or service provider. Peer review and collaboration might become key elements in the process of making
decisions.

With trees being implicated in 75% of all valid subsidence claims, the so-called Green Lobby might place also again considerable pressure on underpinning to be adopted as a default solution, rather than tree management especially there, in the case of street trees, this is likely to have a significant social impact.

Particular emphasis will be placed on GIS mapping and modelling – surely to become one of the principal subsidence tools of the next decade. As insurers aim to increasingly reduce their claims cost, is this likely to be an area of conflict, and if so, how can this be reconciled? What is the knock-on effect on Council’s PL position? Or maybe a completely different viewpoint could arise, where local communities concede that more emphasis should be made on the maintenance of street trees to avoid damage and ‘for the public good’. Perhaps if the goalposts significantly
move, at a time when extreme weather leaves us all relying on standpipes every summer for water, then public opinion could change.

Effect on Property Value
Thirdly - and certainly not least in priority, the project is creating an impact simulation on the effect of extreme weather on house prices. Those who have working in the subsidence industry for any length of time will recall the debates regarding whether a property loses value as a result of subsidence, and whether the repair process adequately reinstates that value.

Many policies refer to ‘loss or damage’ – but will not indemnify against both. Insurers have traditionally said that the policyholder cannot really expect to be reimbursed the cost of repair (directly or indirectly) and also receive a loss of value payment – but is there a risk that this might open up the whole argument again? Might policyholders start to want cash rather than repairs – and will the industry again see a re-emergence of patched up homes which were previously the subject of claim settlement on a diminution basis.

So in summary, the 1st Annual Assembly of CREW has set out its agenda for consideration of the impact of, and reaction to, extreme weather on both UK homes and also the community. Whilst not a direct reaction to the Pitt Report, it is aligned to Pitt’s findings and is a significant step in following Pitt’s recommendations.

CREW will inevitably have implications for insurers and loss adjusters – but it is too early to be sure what these implications might be, and how they will influence behaviour and outcome. The debate over the next few is likely to be lively and, at times contentious. What is clear is that subsidence is has not fallen off the agenda but is viewed by key stakeholders as a key issue going forward. On that basis, surely this isn’t the time to abandon the subsidence ship, but rather use the experience of the adjusting and subsidence industry to effectively pilot the vessel through what might be potentially complex times ahead.

Tony Boobier FCILA, B.Eng, C.Eng, FICE