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Flood advice for businesses

Flooding can cause serious damage to your property, contents, production and ability to trade.

It can also impact your staff and your ability to supply your customers.

You can’t always stop a property from flooding but you can put measures in place to help minimize the damage and speed up recovery time.

Now that we’re well into the autumn we’d recommend you take this time to assess your property and plan ahead for any bad weather because events like flooding can be traumatic enough without worrying about what you need to do.

Here are a few things you can do now to prepare

  • Where machinery is on lower floors and can’t be moved protect these areas from water invasion
  • If you are re-decorating it’s worth using waterproof sealant on external walls and water resistant paint on internal walls
  • Seal gaps in external walls around electrical and phone entry points or piping with water resistant materials such as silicone
  • If you’re carrying out any plumbing repairs, non-return values in drainage pipes and on waste water systems will prevent sewage backing up into your premises
  • Put together a flood emergency response plan so your business knows what to do in the event of a flood

If a flood is imminent here are some tips for limiting damage

  • Unplug all electrical items and store them along with any tools up high or on upper floors
  • Power down machinery and plant when safe and practical to do so
  • Secure any items outside that could float and cause damage to your property
  • Turn off gas, electricity and water supplies at the mains.
  • Keep all important documents in watertight plastic bag in a high safe place
  • Open external doors and windows and smear the frame with silicone sealant, then shut and lock them to provide a watertight joint
  • Put into place temporary flood barriers for doors, windows and airbricks
  • For floods deeper than one metre it is usually best to allow the water to enter the property to prevent any structural damage which could be caused by a build-up of water pressure outside

How can we help you?

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We do everything we possibly can to check that we have got our facts straight, but it’s always possible that we could make a mistake (hopefully not or never would be better). Therefore we would like to make you aware that we accept no responsibility for information that may be factually incorrect or out of date, but we will do our best to make sure that all content is accurate. Our vision behind bringing the blog to the wider community is to keep our clients and prospective clients informed of their legal requirements, the different products on offer and how they may benefit your business and the new schemes we find which we think will benefit you.

We are Personal and Commercial Insurance Brokers based in Newquay, Cornwall covering the whole of the UK.

Information taken from Aviva Flood Advice Guide.