Monday 31, August 2009

Wildfires Tear through the Nation; IBHS Offers Wildfire Property Protection Guides

Wildfires can begin anywhere at any time and have recently become a year-round threat to lives and property in 38 states around the country. As of Aug. 31, more than 64,000 wildfires had consumed more than 5 million acres of land, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Unusually hot and dry weather conditions, combined with gusty winds, are heating up the wildfire season in many parts of the country. August has proved to be a more active month for wildfires than July, when wildfire activity was below average, although the year-to-date number of wildfires remains above the 2000-2009 average.

Firefighters reported Aug. 25 that three wildfires, which had been burning throughout California for weeks, were finally fully contained. Unfortunately, firefighters in that state are still battling nine large fires that are consuming thousands of acres of mountainous brush, forests and chaparral. Thousands of residences also are threatened, and road closures and evacuations are in effect. According to the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC), California is not alone. Firefighters are busy keeping flames at bay as blazes tear through the countryside in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington.

The cost of fighting these destructive fires continues to rise. Increasingly firefighters, stretched thin by large fires, are forced to choose which homes and businesses to save. Often these choices are based on which structures are most accessible and defendable. IBHS has devoted many of its resources to developing effective ways for property owners and residents to reduce their risk of wildfire exposure.

Nine regional wildfire property protection guides produced by IBHS for homeowners and business owners were unveiled Aug. 27, in conjunction with the National Fire Safety-Property Insurance Wildfire Summit in Dallas. The summit was co-hosted by IBHS and the International Association of Fire Chiefs, with a number of IBHS member insurers and reinsurers participating.

Each IBHS wildfire guide contains a property assessment form, including a cost estimate tool, which will help home and business owners assess their wildfire risk and prioritize necessary retrofit projects. The accompanying retrofit guide will walk them through the projects needed to reduce the chance that their property will be damaged or destroyed by wildfire. IBHS member companies are encouraged to co-brand the guides and provide them to policyholders and agents, and to include the content in Web and/or print communications. For more information, contact Member Relations Manager Joy Whaley at jwhaley@ibhs.org or 813-675-1050.

The guides are organized as follows:

Central U.S.:
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska and Ohio

Florida

Great Lakes:
Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin

Mid-Atlantic/Northeastern:
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia

Pacific Northwest:
Idaho, Northern California, Oregon and Washington

Rocky Mountain:
Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming 

Southeast:
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee

Southern California

Southwest:
Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas

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Groundbreaking

IBHS is hosting a ceremonial groundbreaking at the construction site of the new IBHS Research Center in South Carolina next month on Sept. 16. This event is being held in conjunction with the IBHS Executive Committee meeting in Charlotte that same day. In addition to our Executive Committee members, local dignitaries and media representatives also have been invited.

All financial contributors to this state-of-the-art facility will be prominently featured in any publicity about this event and/or the lab. Also, when construction of the research center is complete next year, we will hold a much larger, grander dedication event at the facility to which senior executives will be invited.

We appreciate the continued commitment to, and support of, IBHS from our members as we construct this one-of-a-kind, world class property loss mitigation research facility.

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Get Ready During National Preparedness Month

Six years ago, the Department of Homeland Security selected September to be National Preparedness Month in honor of the victims who were lost during the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York. IBHS has once again joined the Ready Campaign and is a proud member of the 2009 National Preparedness Month (NPM) Coalition. This year, the NPM will focus on changing the perceptions about emergency preparedness and will help Americans understand what it truly means to be Ready.

Emphasis will be given to teach the public how to communicate important preparedness messages to their family, their business and their community with a new series of customizable materials. Visit http://www.ready.gov for more information.

To help people determine what natural disasters their home or business faces and how to protect against those hazards, the IBHS Web site www.DisasterSafety.org offers a ZIP code tool that will generate a list of risks at that location. Property protection projects are provided to help minimize the impact of natural events such as windstorms, flooding, earthquakes, wildfires, severe winter weather and hailstorms. There is also a video gallery with examples showing how to perform many of these relatively easy tasks, and disaster planning resources for small businesses. Working together we can all help America be better prepared when the next disaster strikes.

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Hurricane Ike Research Report

Hurricane Ike, both in the size of its cloud mass and the integrated kinetic energy it generated was unlike any other hurricane that modern science has been able to observe in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm slammed into the Texas Coast on Sept. 13, 2008, and presented researchers with a valuable opportunity to observe the real-world performance of building materials, product standards and construction techniques. It also provided the first performance test of homes constructed to the building code-plus criteria outlined by the Institute for Business & Home Safety’s Fortified…for safer living ® program. Next month, IBHS will release an engineering report detailing the findings of post-disaster field research conducted after this powerful storm, which compares the performance of homes built to the Fortified standard with traditional construction. Ike ranks as the third costliest hurricane to make landfall in the United States, behind Hurricane Andrew, which caused $22.8 billion (2009 dollars) damage in 1992, and Hurricane Katrina, which caused $46.3 billion (2009) dollars in 2005. Property losses from Ike total an estimated $12.5 billion across eight states; at least 115 deaths are directly linked to the storm.

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IBHS Code Development Staff Appointed to ICC Structural Committee

Wanda Edwards, IBHS director of code development, was appointed to serve on the International Code Council (ICC) Structural Committee for the next code cycle. She will be attending her first meeting Aug. 27-29 in Denver, Colo.

The Structural Committee will hear testimony on proposed code changes to the structural portion of the International Building Code (IBC) during hearings to be held in Baltimore, Maryland beginning Oct. 24. The committee will make recommendations to the ICC for the final hearings next year. Ms. Edwards previously served on the ICC Structural Committee from 2004 to 2007.

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North Carolina’s Beach Plan Goes to Governor’s Office

Legislation that amends North Carolina’s state-funded coastal insurance plan, known as the Beach Plan, was recently signed by Gov. Beverly Perdue on Aug. 26 after the state’s House of Representatives approved the amendments made by the Senate earlier this month.

In the fall of 2008, Wanda Edwards, IBHS director of code development testified before the North Carolina Joint Select Committee regarding the potential impact a major hurricane could have on the state’s insurance industry. Her remarks focused on retrofitting homes, the status of the building codes in North Carolina and how they compare to other coastal states and the IBHS Fortified…for safer living® program. Remington Brown, IBHS Fortified group manager joined Ms. Edwards in presenting information to the governing board of the North Carolina Beach Plan and later met with stakeholders in the coastal construction debate, including builders, real estate agents, appraisers and product managers during the same visit.

The Beach Plan amendments establish credits for mitigation and disaster-resistant construction techniques for the first time in North Carolina. The credits extend to Beach Plan policyholders and those with private market coverage in the state’s 18 coastal county regions.

Other changes to the Beach Plan include: the establishment of higher insurance deductibles; placement of a $1 billion cap on insurers’ post-storm assessments; and the retention of insurers and Beach Plan surpluses at the end of the year by not distributing to member insurers but rather allowing leftover funds to help pay for losses and purchase reinsurance.

The new law places a surcharge, not to exceed 10 percent, on the annual premiums paid on homeowners insurance to cover storm damage that exceeds the capacity of the Beach Plan. The state set up the Beach Plan to provide coverage for the state’s homeowners who could not obtain coverage elsewhere. The surcharge would be limited to $65 a year for the average homeowner, based on the typical premiums on insurance policies in the state.

Officials are optimistic that this reform bill will provide stability to the North Carolina property insurance market by limiting coverage to homes valued at $750,000 or less, down from $1.5 million. It also limits contents coverage.

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Compliance with the PS-Prep Guidelines

Debra Ballen, IBHS general counsel and senior vice president of public policy, and Diana McClure, IBHS business resiliency program manager, met with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on July 31 in Washington, D.C. The meeting centered on a discussion of the small business component of the Voluntary Private Sector Accreditation and Certification Preparedness Program (PS-Prep), which is part of the Congressionally directed implementation of the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007. IBHS also was invited to present its Open for Business ® program, to demonstrate how it facilitates small business compliance with the PS-Prep guidelines. IBHS strongly endorses the establishment of the PS-Prep program in a manner that encourages uncomplicated and low-cost or no-cost participation, particularly among small businesses.

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IBHS Outreach

Dr. Tim Reinhold, IBHS senior vice president of research and chief engineer, participated in the 2009 Farm Bureau Actuarial Conference, on Aug. 5 in Oklahoma City, Okla. The focus of his presentation was the importance of building to IBHS Fortified…for safer living® standards to increase the survivability of homes, specifically in light of lessons learned from Hurricane Ike along the Texas coastline. As part of his presentation, Dr. Reinhold analyzed the performance of the Fortified designated homes during Hurricane Ike and shared information with conference attendees about the new IBHS multi-peril research laboratory being constructed in Chester County, S. C.

Remington Brown, IBHS Fortified group manager, presented “Fortified Solutions for Resilient Communities” during the South Carolina Safe Home Expo on Aug. 10 in North Charleston, S.C. The three-day expo focused on hurricane preparedness for the public, insurance agents, real estate agents and the construction industry.

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Congratulations to IIHS

IBHS congratulates its sister organization, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), for 50 years of service to our country. The organization is hosting a celebratory event on Sept. 9 at its Vehicle Research Center in Ruckersville, Virginia. IBHS President & CEO Julie Rochman will be there to share in the celebration. Ms. Rochman served as vice president of communications at IIHS from 1996 until 2000. IIHS is a nonprofit research and communications organization funded by auto insurers. For five decades, the IIHS has been a leader in determining effective solutions to prevent motor vehicle crashes, as well as to reduce crash-related injuries. The Institute's research focuses on countermeasures aimed at all three factors in motor vehicle crashes (human, vehicular, and environmental) and on interventions that can occur before, during, and after crashes to reduce losses.

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Hail Damage Hits Hard

It is often smaller than an inch in diameter and rarely falls for more than 15 minutes in any one location, but hail still manages to cause more than $1 billion in damage to property in the United States each year. The Insurance Information Institute reports thunderstorms involving hail held five of the top 20 spots for the costliest natural disasters in 2008.

The risk of hail is greatest during the spring and summer – especially for people who live in “Hail Alley,” a string of southern and central Plains states. Hail Alley sits east of the Rockies, in the area where Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming meet. It can extend into Montana, South Dakota and Kansas, all on the High Plains, then southward through Oklahoma and north Texas. Some locations in this area get 20 or more hailstorms each year, most between May and June, although the season extends from April to October.

Hail damage involving buildings, including residential and commercial properties, most commonly affects the roof covering since it is the largest component of most structures. Windows and siding also may be damaged. It is important to be able to recognize specific signs a roof may have hail damage:

• When it rains, do too many granules wash away?
• Are there water stains on the ceiling?

One effective solution to reduce hail-related losses is to use impact-resistant roof coverings. Products classified in accordance with the UL 2218 standard have been shown to sustain significantly less damage after being impacted by 1- to 2-inch hail stones.

IBHS and the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) recently launched two new online educational programs to teach roofing contractors, consumers and other interested parties about impact-resistant, steep-slope roof systems. For more information or to register for either program, visit www.nrca.net/nrcauniversity.

The first engineering focus at the IBHS Research Center, currently under construction, will be on roofing systems. Tests will include using actual ice balls that realistically simulate hail and its effects, rather than steal balls that are often used in current hail research testing.

IBHS offers a variety of resources, including an assortment of hail maps for IBHS members that illustrate the expected number of times in a 20-year period (the assumed average life of a residential roof) that damaging hail will fall. IBHS members have access to state hail maps that offer more detailed information about hail damage rates within individual counties.

For more information about hail, visit the IBHS hail Web page.

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