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How LV= Delivered a Human Response to the Floods in Cumbria

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How LV= Delivered a Human Response to the Floods in Cumbria A case study... How LV= delivered a human response to the floods in Cumbria BROKER LVbroker.co.uk LV= Insurance Highway Insurance ABC Insurance @LV_Broker LV= Broker Contents LV= in Kendal Storm Desmond LV= attended the scene Storm Eva Case Studies Storm Frank What next? 2 A case study... And the rain came... When Storm Desmond hit on 4 December 2015, nobody anticipated another two Background of Storm Desmond storms would follow. Storm Desmond was 4–6 December the start of intense rainfall and high winds Storm Desmond brought extreme rainfall and concentrated over Cumbria in the last part storm force winds with a few rain gauges reported of 2015. Storm Desmond was quickly to have recorded in excess of 300mm in a 24 hour period. followed by Storm Eva, proving more Thursday 3 December Friday 4 December misery over the festive period before Storm Frank put an end to the wet and windy weather on 31 December. Whilst many of the areas had been affected by flooding in the past, the immediate reaction was that this event was the worst in living memory. Many areas already had some form of flood defence in place and others were in the process of improving existing defences. Unfortunately Saturday 5 December Sunday 6 December the defences were unable to cope with the record river levels and in many instances were overtopped. LV= popped-up in Kendal Kendal was the first badly hit area and within hours of the news breaking on the 7 December, we sent two senior members of our claims team 300 miles up to Kendal (1). Armed with blankets, thermal mugs The path of Storm Desmond from the and countless 4 -6 December 2015. bottles of water, our team set up a pop-up flooding, offering alternative accommodation and financial office on Kendal assistance. high street so they could deal The pop-up office was open to everyone, whether a directly with commercial or home customer of LV= or not, the team 1 our customers were available to assist with claims and arranging affected by the emergency payments as well as offering advice and 1: All of our local customers received a call from our claims team to let them know that they could pop in and see us at the Mintworks in Kendal high-street. Our first customer said she was so pleased to be able to pop into the office rather than having to pick up the phone. 3 CASE STUDY: Flooding 2016 During Storm Eva river Background of Storm Eva banks burst in Cumbrian towns 23- 24 December – causing up to four feet of Storm Eva hit the UK on Christmas Eve bringing flood water high winds and heavy rain resulting in the Met Office issuing seven severe flood warnings, meaning danger to property and life. Flood Risk support to the local - High community. Within two days of the team being set - Medium up, our team of two had processed 112 claims. - Low As well as supporting brokers and customers the team were asked to help local authorities 2 deal with a disaster that affected nearly every member of the Kendal community. The local council invited the team to attend a Business Recovery drop in, to give advice to local businesses that had been damaged by the floods; these sessions were supported by emergency services teams and provided real practical advice and support to a badly damaged community. People were 3 queuing to speak face to face with our senior claims team, many of which were non LV= customers. LV= attended the scenes After setting up base in Kendal the team received a call about a block of flats without running water, they were 2: Along with the local council, advice was on hand from the were by far the busiest table there, with customers still queuing to Environmental Agency, the Highways Agency, the British Chamber see us 30 minutes after the event finished. of Commerce, Waste Disposal, Building Control, the Federation of 3: Some more pictures of the devastating destruction caused by Small Business, along with a few others. The council asked us to the flooding to one of our customer’s homes. attend to give general advice on insurance matters, and yes, we Weather image source: Gov.org image source: Weather 4 CASE STUDY: Flooding 2016 soon on their way to hand- deliver over 300 bottles Background of Storm Frank of water (4) to the affected 29- 30 December residents. Storm Frank brought persistent heavy rain and strong gales at the end of the year, causing We also visited our further severe flooding across the country. business customers to determine what help they needed. As the storms hit, Christmas was just around 4 the corner therefore our first priority was to do everything we could to make it easier for our customers who’d be out of their homes over the festive period and ensure our business customers were able to start trading again as soon as possible. The intensity of Storm Frank as it hit on 5 Our response team of loss 29 December 2015. adjustors, jumped into action, removing contents (5) that were salvageable and started the assessment process to understand the amount of damage. Within days some properties had the contents removed and dryers were in. “I’m really proud of During an eight week period we had at least two the way everyone pulled members of the claims team based in the affected area, right through to mid-January. together to ensure that our customers received Storm Desmond flooded industry leading customer 5,200 homes across Lancashire service during the floods. Special and Cumbria. thanks must go to our colleagues in Sales and Service for their support and to our people who travelled all the way up to Kendal so that our Above and beyond customers could talk face to face Empowering our people to do the right thing for our with us”. brokers and their customers is at the heart of what we do. Mike Hall Unfortunately it’s when things go wrong that customers Head of Property & Liability Claims find out just how effective their insurers are on delivering their promise. Making a difference when our customer need us most is exactly what we do. 4: Matt and Daniel from the Claims team hand-delivered water 5: What we saw as we drove in could only be described as to a block of flats insured under a commercial policy which was devastating. Streets filled with contents from houses, and lives without running water. turned upside down. It’s difficult to fully appreciate what these people have been through until you come and see it for yourself.” - Daniel Game, Commercial Claims Team Leader 5 CASE STUDY: Flooding 2016 Making sure our brokers and streets of houses ruined, covered in customers felt supported, we debris and roads blocked by skips contacted all customers in the in the attempt to clear up. However affected areas, including those within 6 weeks of the storms hitting who hadn’t made a claim, to some positive progress had been ensure they knew what to do and made. They met with a number of that they were safe. policyholders and contractors to establish what had been completed During these difficult times we and what the next steps were in continued to assess the situation order to get back up and running. and deployed assistance to our 6 brokers and customers where it was Every business Kevin and Graeme needed most. visited were all very different with their own challenges, however • Customers in the local area the visits identified one common were sent a text message ground, a positive attitude to advising where they could put things right. Jumping into find us action and visiting those brokers • Flowers were sent to a and customers affected the most policyholder’s wife after being helped us quickly understand the admitted to hospital shortly 7 full impact of the flood damage after the floods and enabled us to take practical action; however it was our time • Policyholder dropped their mobile that our brokers and customers appreciated the most. in flood waterafter receiving our notification text – we Here’s some of the things arranged to replace it straight we saw away Damaged caused to two ground The floods are gone, but floor apartments (6) in a recently we’re still here built block. The insured is proactive and doing all they can in In early 2016, Kevin Hawkins, Head 8 regard to reinstatement of work of Property & Liability Underwriting and risk improvements. (7 & 8) and Graeme Stacey, Property Claims The water came in over the tops of the Broker Relationship Manager visited some balconies and in through of the affected areas in the north-east the doors so they are England, including Ambleside, Grasmere, making alterations to Glenridding, Pooley Bridge Kendal and protect against this in Keswick. future e.g. raising the Kevin balcony height. When Kevin and Graeme arrived the damage in some places was horrendous with entire Graeme 6: The view from the apartment balconies. The circled area is remains recommending stripping back to 1m in height. The insured has checked of a caravan from a nearby local site which was also damaged in the with a damp meter and is happy with the depth of removal. floods. 8: The insured is reinstating these rooms with ceramic floor tiles as 7: The drying out process of the apartments is progressing well. The other rooms which had them have dried with no apparent damage, they insured has only hacked off a small area of plaster despite the surveyor will also add a couple of rows of ceramic skirting for further protection.
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