Tell us about WTW and its history.
WTW provides data-driven, insight-led solutions in the areas of people, risk, and capital to make organisations more resilient, with maximised performance and motivated workforces. The company is one of the world’s oldest insurance brokers, founded in 1828 by Henry Willis, merging with Faber Brothers in 1898 to create Willis Faber.
Over the ensuing decades, the company continued to expand, right the way through to the 2016 merger between Willis Group and Towers Watson, ultimately resulting in WTW as we know it today.
WTW’s breadth of people, risk, and capital expertise includes the Property Risk Engineering (PRE) Practice, which consists of highly trained risk engineers. The practice identifies, evaluates, and mitigates key risk exposures and the adequacy of controls in relation to property. It acts as advocates and advisers on technical matters relating to property risk improvements and liaises with insurers.
WTW’s PRE Practice also works to benchmark best practice across portfolios of properties to provide leverage when presenting risks to insurance markets.
Why did you become an FPA member?
The FPA is a trusted and independent leader in fi re safety, providing robust advice and insight to industry and commerce. The publications the FPA produces, its training, and its risk control notes are invaluable resources widely used by the insurance industry.
Being one of the largest broker risk engineering resources in the UK, FPA membership makes a valuable contribution to WTW delivering our fire safety and associated risks solutions.
What challenges do you face as a business in the industry?
Legacy issues such as composite panels with combustible insulation material are still a challenge, but some modern methods of construction seem to be storing up similar problems for the future. Projects are often being delivered at the lowest cost with adherence to building regulations too often being seen as an adequate protection level.
We’re constantly working to educate contractors and businesses at the construction phase on the benefits of enhanced protection levels to achieve good compartmentation and installation of sprinklers.
We’re also focused on staying ahead of the curve on emerging risks and industries, including new types of construction materials and building techniques, such as timberframed construction and factory-built systems, unmanned distribution warehouses with highpiled, dense-racked storage, fire alarm, and fire suppression systems.
In addition, we stay abreast of emerging technologies and their implications, such as lithium-ion batteries being used in vehicles and warehouse transport, and battery energy storage systems (BESS) to ensure we can advise businesses appropriately on them.
What does a typical client look like?
There’s no such thing as a typical WTW client: they operate in diverse sectors, from retail to manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, logistics, transportation, shipping, oil and gas, power generation, waste management, and others.
The companies we work with also range from standalone privately owned domestic companies to multi-national public companies with global presence and customers.
What problems does your business try and resolve?
The PRE Practice reviews our clients’ exposures to risks that could impact their ability to operate using critical analysis, primarily focusing on risks to business assets.
A major and common issue is potential for fire, with flooding and extreme weather events also working their way up the agenda.
Our analysis highlights any weaknesses in protection levels, whether in terms of construction, process, or fire protection. We then propose strategies to eliminate, reduce, or remediate these exposures, which often includes installing fire protection systems but could also mean enhancing management programmes, such as controlling hot works.
Improving an organisation’s risk profile in this way benefits both its operations and its ability to buy insurance at competitive rates with adequate loss limits.
Discover more at www.wtwco.com
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