Martyn Barrett, Director of Barrett Corp and Harrington (BCH), reflects on the current situation and its impact in the world of insurance reinstatement cost assessments.

2020 started with great optimism for us here in BCH. We had just had our most successful trading year, had committed to investing in an innovative IT system and welcomed three new working directors to the Board. Fully energised after the Christmas break, we landed some very good contracts- a perfect start to the new decade.

Then news started filtering out of China, from a city I had never heard of, in a province I couldn’t spell let alone pinpoint on a map (not even if it was the winning question in ‘Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?’). 

The Western world carried on; we were going to be fine with soap and water and hand sanitiser. The week before lockdown, I had been in to London, calling at agents offices to collect keys and visiting sites- naively on Friday 20th March, l have to admit, being tempted to have the last pint in our local…but resisted.

Feeling The Impact

Within a week our ability to attend sites, particularly those housing vulnerable groups, was stopped and we were introduced to words such as ‘furlough’, ’social distancing’ and ‘self-isolation’. 

With that came a realisation that this was not something that just affected the elderly- any of us could succumb to this vile, invisible and indiscriminate killer. 

Even in the war, so my parents told me, you could visit your family and neighbours- and it is the lack of human contact and face to face communication we are missing, even as a nation that is not overly tactile.

So here we are, in a desperate situation but life goes on in the insurance world. Policies renew, claims occur and are dealt with and, as usual, the setting of the insurance value (declared value) when renewing the policy is just as important…I would suggest more important in these turbulent times. When we pull ourselves back to normality, money will be tight. Do policyholders, at the time of major loss, want a further blow of their otherwise valid claim being reduced because of underinsurance?

SenseCheck

BCH, known for its innovation in ‘normal’ times has created a solution which many of our clients are using (with acceptance by Brokers and Insurers) as a means of getting the insurance value in the right ‘ball park’ at renewal whilst building in a contractual commitment for a full RICS Compliant, site- based Reinstatement Cost Assessment(RCA) to be completed as soon as visiting restrictions are lifted. 

BCH is calling its service ‘SenseCheck’. Quite simply, we do everything that we can without a visit and using details from the Agents, Residents and on-line sources; enabling approximate measurement and a description of the building.

A ‘holding’ report is issued and at that point 50% of the standard fee is charged. Once the site visit is allowed, the full RICS Compliant RCA can be prepared and the report issued to all parties, along with the balance of the fee. 

The Client does not pay more than the standard fee, but SenseCheck provides an interim solution followed by a final report which offers ‘peace of mind’ for at least three years. 

The validity of the original report may be extended should the Client opt for BCH’s Desk Top Review (DTR), another cost effective innovation from BCH, which is now accepted for the purposes of extending the frequency of site based assessments to up to six years in some cases.

An Interim Solution Based on Experience

The SenseCheck service is backed up by BCH’s vast database of thousands of insurance assessments for flats built up over the last 14 years and we’re confident that it is the best solution given these unprecedented times. 

SenseCheck should provide flat owners, through appropriate insurance values, sufficient funds from their policies to cover major loss- an event none of us can foresee but, should it happen, none of us want to be forced to have to find our own money to part fund a claim.

Times are trying enough. It is far better to get insurance values right and to pay the correct premium than to face the consequence of a financially damaging shortfall in an insurance pay-out at a time of loss.