RISCAuthority Outputs

Toolkits

Our suite of software and data toolkits aims to reduce risk and increase business resilience to mitigate against losses. Our data based models exist to assist you and your customers to understand the UK better from a risk perspective and support our substantial influencing efforts. Our core data sets and derivative tools are available for embedding within your IT systems.

The Fire and Flood Database

Available exclusively to RISCAuthority members, the Fire and Flood Database is a repository of important information on significant fire losses within the UK, allowing members to view current and emerging trends in fire losses and benchmark their own claims experience against the industry with real-time statistical analysis. Submissions to the database are made by the loss-adjusting community for incidents with a total loss value (ignoring deductibles, averaging, repudiation, and withdrawn components) in excess of £100,000 or which involved a fatality.

The INFORMER Database

The INFORMER Database is designed to support risk control provisions and insurance underwriting, and is available exclusively to RISCAuthority members. It reconciles approximately 700 risk control appropriate factors to each of the UK’s 1.8 million postcodes to assist members remotely understand geographical risks. Covering crime, flood, infrastructure, fire and rescue service response, census data and more, the database is a unique resource in improving the efficiency of risk control provisions.

Fire and Rescue Service Response Modelling

Fire and Rescue Service Response Modelling is an interactive mapping tool to assist with delivering data and policies regarding fire and rescue service response. With the support of UK fire and rescue services, the toolkit is available exclusively to RISCAuthority members and accurately describes appliance arrival at any UK postcode for each hour of the day and day of the week.

Business Continuity Plan Template for Small and Medium Businesses

This toolkit aims to support businesses with developing a framework to enable a timely response to disruptive incidents, and the ability to continue maintaining services to customers despite the disruption, through the creation of a straightforward Business Continuity Plan. You can access the toolkit here.

The Supply Chain Risk Management Toolkit

With supply chains expanding and becoming ever more complex, the risk of businesses experiencing an interruption is becoming more commonplace. The Supply Chain Risk Management Toolkit helps companies of all types and sizes identify their most critical suppliers, so effort can be focused on managing those suppliers in the event of an interruption. Through multiple choice questions, the toolkit assesses the risk rating of each supplier, and offers measures to manage the risk. You can access the toolkit here.

Fire & Explosion Toolkit

Available exclusively to RISCAuthority members, the Fire & Explosion Toolkit is intended for use in property insurance asset damage loss estimation. It provides tools for estimating safe separation distances to prevent fire spread from pool and building fires (for property protection), and a basic system to estimate property damage from unvented compartment explosions.

Hot Works Site Induction Toolkit

As hot works related fires stubbornly continue to cause significant insurance losses, this software is designed to ensure best practice risk control processes. The software elicits information from those entering a site to conduct hot works and takes them through a hot works safety video, before asking a series of questions to demonstrate understanding. If questions are answered correctly, a photo ID and time-limited certificate is issued. This customisable software is available for you to supply to your clients to help them manage their hot works risks at point of entry. You can access the toolkit here.

Hydrant Locator

This hydrant mapping tool is available exclusively to RISCAuthority members and identifies the location of water hydrants in a postcode. Through this system, users can use ‘street view’ to see the location of yellow hydrant markers. The tool currently features 30% of the country’s data on hydrant location and data sets are continuously being improved for this toolkit.

Building Construction Category Calculator

This toolkit is available exclusively to RISCAuthority members and provides a simple-to-use calculator to assist with applying ‘BDM08: Categories of Building Construction for Fire or Property Insurance Surveys’, for buildings of mixed construction where the overall construction category is not obvious and cannot be readily determined subjectively

Cladding Compliance Toolkit

The Cladding Compliance Toolkit provides preliminary guidance on the levels of fire performance required of building cladding systems and incorporates the amendments made to the approved documents for each country of the UK in 2022. You can access the toolkit here.

BDM02 Fire Protection of Buildings

This simple interactive spreadsheet tool supports, and should be used in conjunction with, BDM02 Fire protection of buildings - Core Document - Compartmentation and Sprinkler Rules which synthesises the Technical Bulletin TB206 into the format of Purpose Group tables for compartment size and fire resistances. You can access the toolkit here.

Standards and guides

Our extensive document library assists the insurer, designer, architect, owner and end-user embed resilient measures into their businesses and process operations. Our document library includes:

Insurer Property Protection Guides

These guides offer the construction design community technical guidance about how to protect commercial buildings from fire with a view to improving overall business resilience.

Active Fire Protection Guides

The series of Active Fire Protection Guides (AFPGs) produced by the RISCAuthority Suppression & Detection Working Group provides summary information on each of the main firefighting technologies and detection systems currently available.

Renewable Energy Need to Know Guides

This collection of focused and concise technical guides complements RISCAuthority’s wider risk control guidance, covering a range of renewable energy and energy-storage topics. The guides are designed with the end-user in mind, providing good practice risk control advice to address fire safety issues.

Risk Control Guides and Briefing Notes

Our series of risk control model-code documents provide discussion and good practice loss prevention guidance for industrial and commercial processes and systems, whilst the briefing notes provide a focused technical background to topical risk control challenges and key risk control measures to mitigate them.

Security Guides

This collection of guidance documents examines current theft and general crime challenges across a range of commercial sectors and provides good practice security solutions.

Building Design and Management Guides

These guides describe measures that should be taken in addition to the mandated life safety requirements to ensure that the protection of commercial property and the resilience of businesses are suitably addressed. (This series is being systematically updated by the Passive Working Group.)

Business Continuity Guidance

These guidance documents explore how a business can be impacted during an unplanned process or service disruption and the business continuity planning that will help to mitigate the risk.

Business Sector Risk Review Reports

These review reports are designed to highlight the claims loss history for particular business sectors to help inform insurance and risk control choices and provide best practice guidance.

Exclusive Insurer Insight Reports

These reports cover a range of topics including modern methods of construction, fire and rescue service operations and response policy to automatic fire alarms.

Fixed Firefighting System Questionnaires

Although sprinkler systems continue to be well standardised, there are plentiful alternative extinguishing and control systems available. In the absence of proven standards and with justified concerns about performance, these guidance documents and questionnaires for insurers aim to equip users with the correct and relative information to improve such propositions.

The LPC Rules for Automatic Sprinkler Installations

The LPC Rules for Automatic Sprinkler Installations is published by the FPA with technical authorship drawn through RISCAuthority. The development committee is made up of RISCAuthority member insurers, interested stakeholders (including BAFSA and LPCB), and industry experts, who oversee the upkeep and progression of this vital document.

Engagement and resources

The RISCAuthority scheme invites members to maintain a high degree of involvement and influence in our projects.

We provide the industry with a credible voice on key technical issues through:

Government and industry lobbying – representing our members on a range of industry platforms, sitting on committees and working groups to influence and steer the direction of government and leading establishments.

Standards development – acting on behalf of our members to influence and undertake the development of industry guidance and standards.

Industry resources – developing and disseminating insurer advice, guidance, and toolkits to the wider market.

Industry engagement – seeking input and engagement at all levels for all projects from the wider industry.

Research projects – all members are invited to influence research projects by having representation on each of the Working Groups to scope, specify and steer the scheme’s outputs.

RISCAuthority members also have access to a wealth of resources including:

Expert advice – our team of technical consultants are on hand to offer expert advice via a helpline service on a broad spectrum of topics including fire, flood, security and legislation.

Presentations by RISCAuthority experts – members can request the delivery of presentations to their Underwriting, Risk Control, and Surveying teams to keep abreast of general emerging issues, tackle specific relevant topics, or provide technical insight into a new resource.

Resource customisation – we can apply your branding to RISCAuthority documents and resources for both print and digital distribution to your customers.

FPA membership – offering continuous updates and insights into fire legislation changes, networking events, exclusive fire safety resources, and training and professional development opportunities.

Fire & Risk Management – the FPA’s industry leading journal is published 10 times a year and offers an independent perspective on a wide range of risk and resilience subjects with contributions from leading industry professionals and experts.

Events and webinars

Member engagement is at the heart of the RISCAuthority membership scheme which values member participation and insight to support the development of future projects. Our varied events and webinar programme covers a wealth of topics, and recognises the value of in-person events as well as regular webinars.

Annual RISCAuthority Seminar

The RISCAuthority annual seminar is now firmly embedded in the UK insurance calendar of events, presenting invaluable opportunities for the discussion of emerging concerns and recent issues. The seminar offers delegates the opportunity to benefit from Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) CPD hours and attendance is free-of-charge for members.

Annual FIRE Conference

RISCAuthority members are offered discounted tickets at the industry-leading annual FIRE Conference, collaboratively organised by the FPA, NFCC, Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE), and the Fire Sector Federation. This conference is established as the leading industry forum across the fire sector, offering delegates the opportunity to network with key stakeholders in a mix of plenary and workshop style sessions as well as pose questions directly to those in authority.

Webinars

Members benefit from live CII and FPA accredited webinars held throughout the year. RISCAuthority’s team of technical consultants tackle technical and strategic issues, and provide an opportunity for Q&A. Webinar recordings are also available to watch on demand in the Members’ Area.