Pitt Report and Flood Issues

       The flood events of 2007 which affected thousands of homes and business’s and their recovery and return to normality were a catastrophe for the UK. The incompetence and inconsistencies seen in the recovery and restoration process were so bad that the government employed Lord Pitt to review the situation and provide a route to possible improvement.

There is generally some industry resistance to change because of the suspected costs involved but the reality is that current incompetence is extremely costly. Pitt must be seen as a one eyed man in the land of the blind because within a very short time he had identified many of the historic inconsistencies which plague the flood restoration industry.

• Why does it take months and even years to dry properties often next door to properties dried in weeks?
• What are the real health issues and why are there no standards of sanitation?
• Why do some companies gut a building when others restore without unnecessary demolition?

Of course with no technical knowledge or experience Sir Michael Pitt  he has no idea of the real state of the restoration industry, which has been decimated by insurance company procurement panels reducing the countries contractor companies  from over 200 in 2000 to less than 10 in 2009. Add to this the continuing reliance on drying systems designed for American timber frame buildings being used to dry the UK’s stock of brick buildings.

Procurement has stripped both profit and capability as companies have to become more efficient in their day to day business which means that in peaks such as wide area floods capacity they do not have the capability to respond effectively. This means delays of weeks and even months before competent technicians arrive to assess the situation and initiate mitigating controls to reduce damage and costs. Delays of a few days can escalate the initial damage caused by flood water to include damage caused by uncontrolled evaporation, bacterial amplification and the potential for mould and associated health risks.

This of course leaves the door open for builders who everyone classes as “Cowboys” because they really have little or no knowledge of competent restoration or recovery and rely on strip out and total gutting of all wet or possibly wet materials, thereby increasing costs for unnecessary works and more importantly time line to claim closure.

Loss adjusters have to share a part of the blame for slow and often incompetent recovery procedures. What may be a surprise to some is that loss adjusters have no training requirement to understand fire or flood restoration procedures and invariably rely on fingers to assess moisture content and experience on how many dehumidifiers are required. This of course takes no account of moisture loading, permeability, vapour barriers or any of the relevant factors identified in section 7 of the Pitt Report.

Insurance clam managers must also take some responsibility for the UKs poor restoration performance in historic flood events. The Lewes floods of 2000 Carlisle 2004 and north East 2007 had similar failures but different explanations. Lewes was a 100 year flood, Carlisle was out of the way and few contractors were nearby, and the north East were exceptional in severity.  In all three events I undertook audits and the real problems were:

• Claims managers were not prepared for massive increases in claims.
• Loss adjusters did not have enough experienced people on the ground.
• Contractors and equipment were overstretched.

Significantly no progress in education of contractors or indeed the industry had occurred since the Lewes floods despite the formation of the BDMA British Damage Management Association.

The BDMA of which I was the initial funder and founding chairman has failed to provide a training syllabus, training programs but incredibly certifies hundreds of technicians a year for taking a multiple choice question paper which as had the same questions since the first examinations were held  nearly ten years ago. The examination held often in the offices of the candidates has volunteer invigilators and no chain of custody for examination papers. The only realistic training is that provided by unscrupulous companies prepared to offer a one day training seminar on what the answers are. The end result is a national industry that cannot possibly provide the level of service we require.

How doe we get away with this you may ask. This has been adequately explained by Lord Pitt. The public, with little or no experience of flooding or restoration process must rely on the “professionals” for guidance, unfortunately there are very few professionals, either retired or forced out of the industry for doing their work properly.

Evidence of these comments is extraordinarily easy to provide. During the national floods of 2007 I was asked by members of the ABI property claims forum to justify my claim that flood claims were 40% too high and that time line to claim closure (recovery) could be shortened by 70%.  I undertook audits with their senior claims managers, chartered surveyors in samples of over 40,000 claims. In absolutely every audit these figures were recognised as accurate. Senior managers still struggled to believe these figures and gave me 20 flooded properties that were adjacent to properties where restoration works were underway or agreed reserves were in place.

The results were absolutely in line and the average cost saving was 40% and the time line issues confirmed as policy holders moved back into their homes months before their neighbours. What is extraordinary is the outcome of this exercise. A three hour presentation in front of senior insurance claims managers containing photographic and documentary evidence of all claims and confirmed by previous estimates and reports and or adjacent comparisons, supported by their own claims team input. The result is that the whole exercise was buried, possibly because the claims managers took the evidence as a slur on their competence, a misconception because my results reflected what can be achieved if the UK replace existing flood and damage restoration protocols, which clearly do not work.