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18% of charities 'not insured against fire/flood' say PKF
Howard Lake | 17 August 2004 | News
Accountants and business advisors PKF warn that 18% of charities surveyed in their up-coming charities risk management survey report 2004 have not taken out insurance for fire/flood or major incident.
The flood disaster that struck the Cornish village of Boscastle this week has raised once again the issue of insurance for fire, flood or major incident. Alarmingly, 18% of the 300 UK charities surveyed by PKF and the Charity Finance Directors’ Group (CFDG) between May and June 2004 are not covered for these eventualities.
Of these housing, conservation and protection, religion and business/professional association charities were the least likely to have insurance for major risks like flooding. The most likely to have such insurance were health and medicine charities.
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Two thirds of respondents identified fire/flood or major incident as a significant risk to their organisation. Almost half of these organisations have a significant degree of dependence on a single site and almost a third of respondents rely on specialist equipment or premises.
Charles Cox, head of charities at PKF, said: “Preliminary data from the PKF charities risk survey 2004 suggests that the threat of major incidents like flooding is recognised and, indeed, a number of respondents have directly experienced one.
“The lack of insurance cover appears to be a conscious choice as few respondents have cited difficulties obtaining insurance cover as a reason for not having it.
“Most organisations are taking some actions in order to address the issue but few are taking the full range of measures needed.”
Arrangements that he recommends should include:
- assessment of actions to minimise the likelihood of the event happening
- major incident response plan to cope with the incident
- business continuity plan to keep the organisation running
- insurance cover to mitigate the inevitable cost of the incident.
The full report will be available from 29 September 2004.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.