Businesses need to hold back floods

Heavy rainfall can lead to flooding and, just like homeowners, business people have to be as prepared as possible

Over 4000 business premises were affected by flood waters back in December 2015 and the supplement provides highly practical guidance on steps all businesses can take to make their premises flood resilient.

Just over a year ago, record levels of rainfall were recorded, with the Environment Agency issuing over 90 severe flood warnings. While 13,000 households were directly impacted, we must not forget about the thousands of businesses affected by the deluge.

We have created the new business flood resilience supplement, which includes an emergency plan template to really act as a guiding hand on what steps to follow to make your office, factory or other commercial facility resilient to flooding.

By following the advice, it will help to make recovery that much quicker.

The new guide is a supplement to Know Your Flood Risk’s popular Homeowners Guide to Flood Resilience and is designed to help business owners be aware, prepare and take practical steps to reduce the impact that flooding can have on their operations.

It includes a design prototype of a flood resilient commercial building, which can be used as a helpful guide for those new to considering flood resilience measures for their office, factory or commercial building.

It is so important to safeguard local economies and jobs. Only a few weeks ago we have seen the British Insurance Brokers’ Association launch a new commercial insurance scheme for businesses with properties located in areas at risk from flooding.

This scheme takes into consideration the use of any property-level resilience products when pricing the premium and is a great step forward. Now, our free supplement delivers pragmatic guidance to support businesses in making sure they are aware and prepared for future flood events to help minimise resulting business downtime.

Over the Christmas period Lord John Krebs from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said it was important to learn from the run of floods that have affected parts of the country in recent years.

Flood events are something we need to be mindful of each year, so it’s vital business leaders and commercial property owners take steps now to make sure that, should the worse happen and flood waters breach their premises, they are prepared and have taken steps to lessen the negative impact on both the building and their business interests.

Visit www.knowyourfloodrisk.co.uk for more information on the Guide to Flood Resilience.