275 - Property Protection and the Role of Insurers with Gary Howe

Why Insurance Matters In Fire Safety

Wojciech Wegrzynski 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Fire Science Show. Many times I've been handling some panel discussions or just having conversations with people About the systems, uh, in which we perform fire safety engineering and for many, you know, issues and problems that were brought up, the answer was: "Oh, yeah, insurer's gonna handle that. Insurer's gonna make sure that this part is good, this part is right. It's, it's their role." And you know what? I don't know. I, I've never had a real exposure to insurer's part of business, and I also respect the fact that it may different internationally perhaps. The, their role in here in Poland is different than it is globally. And you know what? I, I got a podcast. It's the best way to find out. Therefore, I've invited a colleague from the insurance in-industry, Gary Howe, who is a senior risk engineer at Zurich Resilience Solutions. That's a part of Zurich Insurance Group. And Gary was kind enough to take the invite to the podcast and tell me a little bit about his job and tell me a little bit about how the world of insurance works. And actually, it's, it's a very interesting perspective, much different from what I have had in my mind. You know, my I've been mostly dealing with insurers, underwriters when insuring my car or house. I've never really talked deeply about fire with a representative of this industry. Therefore, it, it-- I really enjoy this. I, I mean, I've learned a lot of new things about how this industry works, and I think a lot of the ideas and concepts that are here for the protective protection side of fire safety engineering are just good fire safety engineering practices. So there's something to learn for everyone in this interview. if you're curious how, how the world of insurance, uh, looks from the inside, hop on with me. Let's spin the intro and jump into the episode.

Sponsor Message From OFR Consultants

Wojciech Wegrzynski 2:16

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Beyond Life Safety Into Resilience

Wojciech Wegrzynski 3:15

back to the episode Hello, everybody. I'm joined today by Gary Howe, a senior risk engineer at Zurich Resilience Solutions, as a part of Zurich Insurance Group. Hey, Gary. Thanks for taking the invite

Gary Howe 3:25

Oh, hi Wojciech. Yeah, thank you for inviting me

Wojciech Wegrzynski 3:27

I'm really, really happy to have someone from the insurance industry in the podcast. It's episode, I believe, 275, and it's the first time we cover insurance in the Fire Science Show. I mean, that makes me happy. Um, Gary, I think I- I'm doing this for, like, two decades, I mean, fire safety, and I, think the insurance business and the role of insurers in the fire safety ecosystem is the one that I least understand. And I, think it's, fair to say that if I'm a representative of the fire safety engineering, uh, community, I may not be alone in that. in your opinion, w- what's the role of an insurer in, in the w- world of fire safety?

Gary Howe 4:08

in terms of, a risk engineer in the insurance industry, it's really looking beyond life safety.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 4:15

Hmm

Gary Howe 4:16

we deal with, uh, when we undertake our site assessments, we know that the life safety element, and key parts such as the means of escape, uh, smoke control, et cetera, uh, essentially linking that to meeting, building regulations or the minimum fire safety requirements are catered for by the fire engineer. However, our role is different. We're looking beyond that minimum life safety and considering other factors such as property protection, environmental risk, reputational risk, and I guess sort of critically also, business interruption, which goes beyond, uh, a fire risk assessment or a fire strategy. Looking at the potential impact, a fire could have on the interruption of that business. And I think that, that makes a distinction between sort of life safety and the role, role we play

Wojciech Wegrzynski 5:07

does it also come at the design stage of a building? Because, you know, life safety, as you said, building regulations, it's something that, that's bounding the designer, uh, which means they, uh, have to apply everything before the building's even built. what, what you said then looking beyond that as it's not necessarily something that, that's, uh, being built, and from my experience as a designer, it's, you know, way easier to change stuff on paper than when it's cast in concrete. So, do you get

Getting In Early On Design Choices

Wojciech Wegrzynski 5:35

also to interact at the earlier stages client

Gary Howe 5:39

very much depend on the client, and there's many projects that I'm currently working on where we have a seat at the table very early on in that design stage. I can think of a, a couple of, a couple of large projects in heavy industries at the moment. For example, uh, building a brand new, production line in the molten metals industry, and that would be a good example where the client has approached us to work alongside the, the fire strategy to include, areas beyond life safety and f- f- and, and also help them build a resilient business as well. So they've, they've, they've recognized that life safety only goes so far, and i- in some ways, you know, it's really a, a, a minimum standard to meet. And so, so there are many, many, many times and many opportunities we get to sit down and support the design process by, I guess, building those additional layers of protection to, to build more resilience within, within that overall fire strategy.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 6:37

Do, do you feel you can contribute more when you're involved at the early stage or it's just a different sides of the same, uh, job, uh,

Gary Howe 6:45

Yeah, I have to be... I think we, we have to be realistic. we don't always get the opportunity to comment, uh, uh, at the design stage. And, uh, and often, you know, insurers can sometimes be asked for their opinion once the project's underway or even once the project's built, which is then very, very difficult to make any sort of meaningful changes at that point. So yeah, there are some... There, there can be challenges around, around that, but what, what we try and do is try and have that dialogue as early as we can once we know a project is underway, to, you know, really bring us in as a part of that sort of collaborative process to, try and make sure... I guess our ultimate aim really, uh, as insurers is to try and reduce that period of business interruption to the smallest amount of

Wojciech Wegrzynski 7:30

Hmm.

Gary Howe 7:31

weeks, months we can. I, and I think it's quite interesting because some, not all of our clients will be aware of the limitations of fire safety in terms of fire safety they may think is actually much broader than it is. May, may believe it includes property protection, business interruption. so there's part of an education process to help and inform them that those sometimes additional layers of protection are required.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 7:56

well, in many cases it does. Uh, I mean, I mean, it's a minimum standard of course, and it's focused on, on life safety. But even simple things like compartmentations or requirements for sprinklers, that's already a hell of, mitigation layers for large rush fires. So, like in your case, are those the tools that you're looking on or, or, or it's more, much more subtle in, how

Sprinklers Compartmentation And Critical Assets

Wojciech Wegrzynski 8:20

the new fire safety is tied into this, building regulation minimum standard, kind of building?

Gary Howe 8:25

Yeah, if I can just give you a couple examples. Absolutely, we would support that, um, internal compartmentation, and also, um, sprinklers. We've been a, all insurance companies are an advocate of, correctly designed, installed, and maintained sprinklers. but yeah, they're, they're areas that we very much focus on. I think you've picked up a really good point around construction. That was really one of our starting points. How is the building constructed? What is the internal compartmentation? What are the construction materials? Do we have any combustible construction? How does that influence a potential loss scenario? Does it, would it involve a, a total loss of the building or a partial loss? And then, and then sprinklers, we would often, be tasked by insurance underwriters to look at sprinklers in depth. And while sprinklers may be, designed, for a particular occupancy, um, we would be tasked of checking the water supplies are correct, checking the pump flow results are correct, checking it's adequately designed, the commodity classification is correct for that. And I think just building beyond that as well, we would be then be looking at the vulnerability of critical equipment on site as well. So looking at things like transformers, which can have, you know, a very long lead time as well. So it's looking at any of those kind of, challenges of reinstatement of, of, of critical equipment that again may impact or may e- elongate the business interruption period

Wojciech Wegrzynski 9:51

Uh, who, who's the insurer's underwriter in this case and what's your relationship with, with them?

Gary Howe 9:56

We have a very, very close, uh, relationship with, with our insurance underwriters and our role really is to be the eyes and ears of the insurance underwriter.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 10:07

Okay

Gary Howe 10:08

get to see the risks in the same way as we do, so we're there to provide technical assurance and, and we, we undertake some really key work for them that where they need to understand the risk, as we would call it, insurance terms in more, in more detail, they might want to know more about the risk than, than sort, than is already in a report, say a third party report that might have been written by an insurance broker. They may read that and feel that actually for me to be more comfortable to underwrite this risk, I need to send a risk engineer to site to really do a deep dive on the site and, and the kind of things we would do for them, a- a- again, we would, we would look at the sprinklers in depth, but we would, we would test the pumps and make sure that it's correct, water supplies and really understand the process from the moment, uh, from the door to the delivery of the products out the other end

Wojciech Wegrzynski 11:03

All right. Um, going back to the, additional aspects over life safety that you, that you listed, property, environment, reputation, business continuity, environment. in that case, you worry about, the planet Earth or, like, uh, liability for environmental effects of fires because I, I also, like we need to frame this discussion. Like this mostly touches heavy industry and, and like very large logistics buildings, like large things that people build that are worth billions and billions of, of pounds. what's the environment side of the coin in here?

Environmental Impacts And Toxic Clouds

Gary Howe 11:36

I think it's something that's, um, I guess, has gained much more traction in, in, in recent years. And if we, if we don't have a fire, we don't, we don't have impact on the environment, I think first and, first and foremost. And I think that for us, it's looking at, elements such as, uh, firefighting water runoff as well in the event of a fire. So it's actually working with the client to understand where that's likely to go into the drains or the drinking water. We'll look at airborne pollution as well and, and the impact that has on the environment as well, and local population, housing, et cetera. And I guess something like battery energy storage is a good example where, where we look to undertake toxic cloud modeling so we can support the customer in understanding a worst case scenario. What, what does that hydrogen fluoride look like? What kind of distance based on a certain wind, wind speed as well? And I guess environmentally, we, we also broaden that conversation and bring in elements such as climate change as well within our site assessment we can, we can look forward thinking about making that site resilient to, climate change as well. And, and so that, that again, that broadens, broadens the conversation above and beyond just, uh, just life

Wojciech Wegrzynski 12:52

Yeah. It's a very interesting interaction with the wild and urban interface industries, which actually there's, there's a lot. I, I had an episode with Eulalia Planas from EPC and, and sh- she's doing that for a long time. Very, very interesting. I, I should, should bring Eulalia back to the podcast again. Uh, so environment damage, it, it kind of also relates to your like the, the largest fire you can get because that's, that's where you get the largest cloud and the fallout and, the hazards, which means it's no longer bound, uh, by the building that o- overlaps it or if it's like battery mega pack, facilities likely in containers outside, so there's not even a building to bound it, uh, usually. this means that you must also look at what's stored, uh, how much is it stored, how much of that is near to each other, what are the products, understanding basically the consequences of just the fire itself and what's the maximum size it could get, right?

Gary Howe 13:50

Yeah, absolutely. And one of, one of the key elements, our underwriters need to know is when we, we would undertake, uh, various credible loss scenario calculations, that could be multiple different kinds of fire scenarios. That could be a fire occurring, due to hot work, for example, or it could be a fire occurring to a failure in a piece of production machinery or something else. It could be, an electrical fire. And so, um, yeah, absolutely. So we're looking at linking that fire and, and seeing that fire could potentially start, how could it spread? But also looking at the commodity in the building, looking at the thermoplastic content of the building. Is it on the floor? Is it in racks? What is that spatial separation between goods within the building, um, as well, all will influence that potential loss scenario so that we can provide an insight into the underwriter to give them, accurate guidance on how big the fire and how much in terms of, uh, you know, dollars, in the amount of dollars of property damage and business interruption impacted by that fire. and that commodity conversation or the analysis of, commodity type is critical where we have a sprinkler protected building as well because we can come across buildings where the commodity has changed, and it may impact on

Reputation Damage From Fire Headlines

Gary Howe 15:10

the efficacy of the sprinkler system

Wojciech Wegrzynski 15:12

Yeah, I mean, I ask this because it's very interesting world in from different points of view, different fires are gonna be the worst because for the environment, it's likely gonna be the, your largest fire of your most hazardous commodity. But for the business itself, it could be the damn transformer or it could be the, the cable leading to transformer, you know? I once was doing a expertise in Poland for, for a client. They were refurbishing an old power plant into a shopping mall, and they come to me and they're like, "Ah, do you know the solution to protect this cable for two hours?" I'm like, "Uh, what kind of cable?" And they're showing me this joint cable and like, you know, that's, that's like an very large cable for, for, for a building. Like, "Do you know what does it power?" And like, "Okay, we will find out." And they, they come back and they're like, "Oh yeah, it powers, you know, the, the right-hand side of Warsaw." I'm like, "Okay, that's, that's a pretty dangerous cable to, to fiddle with." Like, you don't want to have two hours on it. You want to have four hours and sprinklers everywhere near that cable because if, if that one goes down, you know, the, there's like irrecoverable damage for you. And here we come to reputation because it's also, uh, something that you've meant and I've, I didn't account for, uh, the, the first place. Uh, so I, I guess, uh, all of that links to the client's good name and, uh, their ability to, sell basically whatever they're selling, right?

Gary Howe 16:40

Yeah, absolutely. Um, um, we've known cases in the past where there's been adverse publicity by major companies in the news, and I guess we've seen that with some of the cyber risk challenges we've seen lately as well, which links to that, where companies' names have been in, in, in the headlines, uh, adversely. And, and it's the same with, with fire as well. Um, it can impact on share price as well, and, you know, the publicity of a fire at a particular location. And, and again, uh, having a, having a picture of a business with huge smoke plumes in the news as well, again, can, um, uh, detrimentally impact the, the image of that company as well. So again, I think for us it's, it's broadening that conversation and looking at what, what tools in the toolbox do we have to, to mitigate that reputational risk and it, a- and quite closely linked environmental risk in an event of a fire.

Business Interruption And Long Lead Times

Wojciech Wegrzynski 17:32

And, and finally on your list was, uh, business continuity, and I feel that this is a big one. So, uh, h- how do you even, like, account for, for business continuity? How, how can you kind of price it, uh, in, in terms of fire losses?

Gary Howe 17:47

Yeah. Um, in terms of, uh, business interruption, business continuity, I think the first, the starting point for us is to really understand the process. So I take mining as a, a good example, something that I'm involved in, copper mining. We, we want to really understand the process from the moment the rock is extracted from the ground all the way through to the, the finished product of a copper plate. So really, the risk engineer is really tasked with understanding all those bottlenecks. So mining, you've got all of the earthmoving equipment, you've got all the crushers, you've got, you've got conveyor belts, you've got all this additional process equipment. All... It's, it's understanding the vulnerabilities of each of that piece of equipment and how that could impact on your business interruption. and we're tasked really, we're looking at If we use one of our credible fire scenarios, does that mean the reinstatement of that business is six months? Is it 12 months? Is it two years or is it even longer? And that's a really important part of the role, and it's also working alongside the customer there to understand fully the process, but also the reinstatement times. and they've got longer and longer over time since Brexit and COVID. Transformers, you mentioned, is a classic example of the el- elongation of time and, you can't run the business without these major transformers. So some sites we'll work with, we might ask them to, to look at, their relationship with suppliers, or do they need a spare transformer available, or do they have a spare transformer at another site location? All of that effort is, is put forward to, support the client because ultimately they want that business interruption for themselves to be as short as possible. It's, it is an insurance issue, but it- it's also, it's a very sort of collaborative conversation. And looking at the, business interruption times that we're experiencing in broad terms, we're seeing those becoming longer and longer and longer and longer for reinstatement times. And I think, I think for me there's perhaps, um, it's not always appreciated just how long it takes for that recovery to take place

Wojciech Wegrzynski 19:49

I mean, it's it's very interesting times that, that we're, we're in because, on one hand you, you're... Everything's like one click away from you. You can o- you can likely order a transformer from China or whatever. But again, there's so much being built, especially in the space of data centers, et cetera. I have a feeling like all those gas turbines and batteries and the mega packs and transformers are just sucked in by a demand that never existed. Do, do you remember when, uh, COVID hit and there was some little shift in, in semiconductor industry, they stopped producing a specific type of semiconductors that were used in vehicles, right? a- and then half a year later, all the vehicle prices go poof through the roof because you cannot order a car because they don't have like a basic chip needed for that because they have not, uh, thought of the, the, the required demand. They thought that it's gonna go down because of COVID. It did not. It was opposite. and it took like two years for the situation on the car industry to normalize. have a feeling like in the heavy industries, in the very specific like equipments, like turbines, transformers, et cetera, it could be the same right now, like

Gary Howe 20:58

Yeah. Um, absolutely, yeah. And I'm working on another, a couple of power gen projects at the moment and, and thinking exactly of them. We've to, we've just had a, uh, one project I'm working on in London, a, a steam turbine just being craned in position now. Now if we have any problem with that, that's at least probably two years before we get another steam turbine to replace that. And, that's a kind of challenge. I think also with one of the conversations we have here, we may, we may get a response that, "Yeah, we can, procure, this replacement part from this supplier in this location." But I guess there's no guarantee that part's gonna be available when you need it as well. So that's sometimes some of the challenging conversations we have. And also as well, do we have the workforce or the contractors available to undertake specialist work when we need them available? They may be tied up on, uh, on, on additional or other projects as well. So it's a really interesting and challenging subject, business interruption, because the, the claims associated with business interruption typically, you know, are, you know, looking at the property damage, the reinstatement, and then the business interruption in heavy industry can be 80/20 in terms of ratio. So, uh, of the claim, you know, 80% of that claim is typically around business interruption and 20% just the reinstatement of the physical assets

Wojciech Wegrzynski 22:16

Yeah, and as you said, uh, a rock comes in, a product comes out. If, if a fire takes out a piece that, you know, delivers a critical element component without the pro- without which the product does not exist, it's not that you've stopped one machine from working, you've stopped, uh, the company from the chain from the rock to the product, like that's, that's quite a hell of a difference, right?

Gary Howe 22:38

Absolutely. And, and, and, part of the work we task the risk engineers is understanding any bottlenecks and some, some production lines, uh, may not have resilience. They may be just a single line process. And so anything in that, in that line, uh, interrupts that process and quite significantly. So again, this is where we try and bring value into the conversation, and l- and look broader into that business interruption aspect because fire very much feeds into that, as a, you know, looking at the dependency of, of key equipment.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 23:09

So here we reach the position where the client has options. They either cannot get an insurer at all, or they could pay a, a really huge premium that covers their reinsu- insurer's, you know, comfort ar- around ensuring this critical equipment that can have such critical consequences. Or they can, for example, install, I don't know, a gas extinguishing system next to their machine, which in case of a fire will protect it, or a sprinkler system or something else, 'cause this is how the conversation looks and wh- what they, they weigh in the end

Gary Howe 23:39

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I think for us when we're looking at advising our clients on, risk improvement measures as we call them, I think for me, in my mind, they, they have to be proportionate, and we also have to think of commercially the cost of the impact of that and be able to, be able to link the cost of that investment to the reduction in the loss and the business interruption. I think, a, great example of that would be something like, a main MCC room, uh, a main substation on a, on a site, on a heavy industry site where you're, you're next door to the grid compound so that, that is your, the one of your key dependencies. So installation of a gaseous fire protection system may be one of the options you want to consider to protect that key asset 'cause, because without that, You can't operate the business

Wojciech Wegrzynski 24:27

Mm, understood, understood.

How A Risk Engineer Runs Surveys

Wojciech Wegrzynski 24:29

let's now move to how do you perform your job because I'm, I'm as much interested in how do you do your job as I'm in the, in the general industry, uh, business. So, uh, before, uh, we, we started talking here, you've mentioned something about risk engineering service, on-site assessments, and the p-procedure. May-maybe you could walk the listeners through the procedure. Like, you, your underwriter calls you, "Gary, we have this, uh, industry. Uh, they have this type of machine. They're c- likely the company depends on it or, or, or maybe they don't know it yet. Please, uh, do your magic." Like, uh, h-how do you approach it and what are the steps that you take?

Gary Howe 25:07

Yeah, sure. I can pick out some, um, some key points of the, of the site assessment. So really what, um, we're, we're tasked with, um, undertaking a qualitative risk assessment. We This essentially provides a grading assessment for the underwriter. So it produces ultimately a, a number which, which informs the underwriter around essentially the quality of the risk. And, and key areas we'd be looking at, on a site assessment would be, the first one, um, would be, the construction of the building. So we're looking, we're looking at how the building construction, is it unprotected steel frame building? And so, uh, we'll be looking at passive fire protection. We'll be looking also, having a deep dive if you've got composite panels in terms of, the age of the composite panels. Have they got any third party accredited listing for et cetera? Are there any internal, fire barriers, firewalls, et cetera? And if so, what are the ratings of those?

Wojciech Wegrzynski 26:02

sorry, at this point, do you use any tools for modeling or any, like, simplified approaches like Eurocodes, et cetera, to assess? Or it's f- fully based on your expertise and, and previous, you know, dealing with, with th- those types of structures?

Gary Howe 26:18

I would say both. So a lot of our international clients will standardize with NFPA,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 26:24

Okay

Gary Howe 26:24

So we'd, we'd typically use those for a lot of the, a lot of the global clients so that, we would have both, looking at the adherence to a particular code, say NFPA 13 for sprinklers, and then, but then we would also have our in- own, own internal insurance standards, which sometimes go above and beyond a code or a specific standard, to offer a- another level of resilience.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 26:47

All right. Uh, so okay, so, so first the construction. What's next?

Gary Howe 26:50

um, I would say the next one of the, important aspects of the visit would be to determine, the sprinkler protection on site. So is it available? Are there any impairments in the system? is it, is it switched on? Is it subject to weekly testing? uh, have we got the records available? We would want to ensure it's r- reliable as well, so we would undertake, an annual perf- pump performance test on the pumps to check the curve and check the uh, hydraulically most favorable and unfavorable areas.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 27:20

by sprinklers you mean broader fixed water f- water, uh, extinguishing systems. Like, uh, you also must mean water mist, like deluge systems, foams. Uh, in those, do you rely, you refer to their own ecosystems? Because wa- water, water mist is particularly interesting because it's kind of performance-based design type of a system, right?

Water Mist Proof Testing And Listings

Gary Howe 27:40

Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, water mist, we see a lot of water mists on the, on, whilst we're undertaking site visits. So typical, um, areas we'd, we'd look at NFPA 750 says for water mist, it should be demonstrated and underpinned through a specific listing and performance fire testing. So we would, we, one of the questions we would ask for, can we have the specific fire test data that underpins the performance of that water mist system? We would look at h- are all the components listed and third party accredited? And then we would also look at has it been designed and installed in accordance with the, installation and operation manual as well? Because, because it's a performance-based system, there's that additional layer of scrutiny to try and tie in the fire test, the installation guide, and the actual physical location together to ensure that it's fit for purpose.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 28:32

It's, it's very interesting because, you know, the performance against fire of those systems is the same globally because it's physics. But the requirements you would have for the same type of a system in Poland, in Australia, in US, in UK, and wherever else in the world, they would be very, very different. if you know that requirements in one country, for example, are perhaps insufficient, you go deeper with the client to guide them, like, to, to, to figure out if, if they're, have vulnerabilities coming out from the practice of the local country or, or you just go say, "Okay, these, these guys can just do this in this country, they're good"?

Gary Howe 29:11

No, I think what we would do, we would, we, we sort of pride ourselves on looking on local standards as well. So we'd first of all look at the local standard in that country and be able to interpret that standard to see whether it has with, say, a, an NFPA code as well. And then we'd have our own internal standards that allow us to further interrogate a design and the expectations for a particular fixed fire protection system. And we would do that for all systems. It's not just sprinkler focus. We, we would look at that for deluge systems such as, an NFPA 15 deluge system for a transformer, for example. Yeah. And also gaseous systems, we would also be scrutinizing those. Have they got room integrity testing? Is there any additional storage? so that applies across the board that, in order to provide, uh, an assessment of, that, particular fire protection system, it requires a, I guess, a deep dive into not only the design, but can we ascertain, uh, and get, get confidence around its efficacy and performance under fire conditions as well?

When Smoke Vent Rules Clash

Wojciech Wegrzynski 30:18

I, I, I can give you such a conflict from Poland. If you, if you've done any large building in Poland, you will very we- well know what I mean. if you have a very large building that is, uh, ESFR-type sprinkler protected, obviously that type of sprinkler i- is supposed to just suppress the, the, the fire totally. Like it's Niagara Falls within a pipe. Uh, and in Poland, for those large buildings, if you want to have specific classification that allows you to build a very large building, you have to have automated smoke control, which creates an environment in which by law you are supposed to open your rooftop vents to vent the smoke out, which is something you absolutely are not supposed to do when you put the Ni- Niagara Falls sprinklers in your building, you know? And then i- it's like, they are mutually exclusive. Like, you are not supposed to open the vents with those sprinklers, period, and you have to open those vents to be legal, period. H- how do you deal with that?

Gary Howe 31:19

Yeah, that is a challenge I've come across a few times and where we have this, I guess, push-pull between life safety requirements and property protection. And, where I've, um, sort of been able to deal with this, this challenge, we've had, things like a firefighter switch where the fire- firefighters are, are then tasked with manually opening those

Wojciech Wegrzynski 31:39

Okay

Gary Howe 31:39

once the sprinklers are, are being operated. Not, not all sites feel comfortable with that and some, uh, in some cases, the life safety requirements then can override our, I guess, our property protection, requirements as well. But yeah, there are, there are some ways. I, I think that's probably the, the main way of overcoming it, leaving that to the firefighters to, to make that decision.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 32:03

We, we've put the black bulbs in, in them, you know, the 182 degrees. Yeah. That's... And, and then by simulation, like that is the only time in my life when by simulation I prove that my system is never gonna operate, and that means it operates perfectly in that case.

Gary Howe 32:20

Yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 32:21

Um, and I, I guess in the end there's always like, you know, the, ability to just account for that in the underwriting or perhaps not insure the building if you're not comfortable enough. Um-

Gary Howe 32:30

mean, there's, there are some buildings we come across where, you know, subject to our site assessment, the, the fire protection isn't deemed, um, adequate and then it may need improvements in order to, to, to bring it up to that, to that kind of

Wojciech Wegrzynski 32:42

All right. Let, let's move with your on-site assessment and, and engineering survey. We touched construction, we touched, uh, the sprinkler protection. What's next?

Bottlenecks Sister Sites And Spares

Gary Howe 32:50

Yeah, so I think, I think the next one then is to, um, to look at, um, the vulnerability of that critical equipment. I know we've mentioned that already, but that's really important. This now is a more of a, a deep dive into understanding what equipment is vulnerable, what is the reinstatement time of that, and what is the, costs associated with the replacement time of that critical equipment, um, so that we can work alongside the client to understand that, that business interruption period and whether a period of time of two years or 18 months or a year is sufficient or not. So we, we would look at each of those, critical pieces of equipment, understand are there alternative sources from, other suppliers or even broadening the conversation, they may have a sister site elsewhere that can undertake the same operation elsewhere. So we would look at the benefits of a sister site who could, could take that, um, particular, process or production on

Wojciech Wegrzynski 33:47

How much in this case you base on predictions and how much is real cases with, and experience with losses of such fires?

Gary Howe 33:54

we're, we're lucky, I think with, um, we have a huge amount of actuarial data around losses, from way back. I mean, um, so that, that helps inform the underwriting decisions so we can, predict actuarially where those losses come from. But a lot of it comes down to the experience of the risk engineer as well and, and having, having that wealth and knowledge of a broad range of industries and occupancies, and history in their mind that they know, um, so they can work alongside the customer. And I think one of the ways we're very impactful is by sort of telling our customer stories anonymized to other customers saying, "On this location, they experienced this challenge. On this location, they had a fire because of this. On this location, the business interruption was elongated due to, to this particular scenario." So I think we bring that auth- authentic, um, history and knowledge, uh, from the risk engineer is really valuable in, in having those conversations.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 34:54

I, I wonder if you know a- about something before the society, you know? Like, uh, does it pop up in your assessments or in questions or database of fire? You also must track the, the fire incidents. I mean, if you're paying out for, for an incident, you definitely have it in your database. So, so, uh, like, a thing that comes to my mind, lithium-ion batteries. Gary, did you know about lithium-ion batteries problems before the society?

Gary Howe 35:21

Well, well, I think, I think one of the, one of the key areas we, we're often looking as a, an insurance company is very forward thing- forward-looking in terms of, you know, those emerging type risks. And, uh, that's one of, one of the areas where, where we pride ourselves on l- looking at that sort of probability and severity outcome from, wind and solar and, and, and batteries and that. So we, we try and stay ahead of the game there and try and, and try and look forward, to see, I guess, what's coming down the railway tracks that's gonna be, uh, gonna challenge us go- going forward. And, um, and I think technology is moving at such a fast rate, it can sometimes be difficult to keep up with, with what's coming next.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 36:05

and and I guess you also have like a head start from the clients, you know? "Hey, uh, you know, you're insuring my site. I would like to install this small nuclear reactor, you know, to replace my conventional power source. You're fine with that, right?" And then you can, yeah, and then you can go

Gary Howe 36:19

ab- absolutely. One of, one of the, e- early areas of, just to give an example of that, is, uh, uh, I was working on a, on a gold mine in South Africa, many years ago, and they were al- already thinking about introducing, uh, lithium-ion battery locomotives underground. So again, quite ahead of many other people as well and, um, bringing in au- autonomous vehicles as well in mining as well. So we, we, we get through those site assessments, we know what, what, what industry's developing, what software's coming along, and it's really valuable because your ears start pricking up and you think, "Oh, that's interesting."

Wojciech Wegrzynski 36:53

But, but from your perspective as a, as a risk engineer or, or a fire engineer, this must be actually quite difficult because it, it's also like you're not gonna get a, a locomotive to burn it down to, to check what's the heat release rate of it. Like, you have to kind of scale up and, uh, your decision is then transferred to the underwriter, and that's transferred to the, the company's outlook. So, so that, that... this is a difficult job actually.

Gary Howe 37:16

Yeah, it can, it can be challenging sometimes and we, we may not always have that test data available or that, that evidence at, at hand. So I guess one of the, one of the areas I, I personally like to fall back on really in, in sort of situations like that is to look at, look at those sort of layers of protection and, and think about everything really from, are the prevention measures? What are the detection measures? Evacuation measures, compartmentation, et cetera. And, and look at those layers of protection to see, which ones, can, uh, you know, how robust each of those layers are for a given challenge

Wojciech Wegrzynski 37:50

Well, I, I assume at this level, when we're talking about big companies, big money, your relationship with the client is more like a partner, not like an auditor. It's not like, "Oh, no, that guy... Like, clean up the facility. This guy's gonna come. Like, he can- and he cannot see that transformer because they're gonna increase our premium." I, I guess at this point, like, if they expect to be paid when the fire happens, everything has to be top-notch and,

Gary Howe 38:14

Yeah, and I think, I think that's one area we, we often get mistaken as, as auditors when we're doing our site assessment. And I always One of the first things I try and do is put our client at ease, 'cause we're not auditors. We're not there to audit. It's not around, it's not about filling in a clipboard or filling in your iPad and coming up with black and white assessments. It's very much a collaborative process, and we go in there, to engage and really support the client as well really, because w- we're both on the same side. We both, both the client and I want to reduce the amount of property damage to the minimum, and importantly, we want to get that business up and running as soon as possible. So, um, I I would say for the majority of the time, our, our advice is, is welcomed and looked upon and, uh, seen as very, very collaborative

Wojciech Wegrzynski 38:59

I mean, from the list of the things, if I was just reading it, uh, it looks like an audit, but, uh, from the discussion and the things that you put, emphasis on, it, it looks like collaboration. So, so yeah, I, I can i- I can imagine that, that, that, uh, bias kind of

Gary Howe 39:15

Yeah, no, think about that. And one, one of the areas, say, one of the areas we would also look at would be inception hazards or ignition sources such as electrical. We would look at, you know, the fixed wire testing. We might have a conversation. It might go, "Have you considered thermographic testing for your distribution boards?" It's not, "You shall do this." It's, "Have you considered it? And these are the benefits of it." and have a, have a conversation around that so, so the client can see, sort of they can do their own cost benefit analysis or, you've got probably a little too many pallets next to your building. If you have a, fire setting or an arson incident, this is the impact on the building from an arson perspective. And they'll go, "Oh, I never really thought about that. How far apart should I move them, Gary?" I'll go, "Well, ideally you want to be this far away from the building to allow for a tilted flame or, you know, adverse wind conditions." So sometimes some of the conversations are just around, are are just a conversation as you're walking around, a facility as good practice advice.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 40:14

So, uh, after vulnerability, what comes next? Is it the, the ignition sources or

Ignition Sources Hot Work And Arson

Gary Howe 40:19

Yeah, very much so. So we would, we would do a deep dive into, say, electrical testing. We would do, um, a, a hot work analysis. We'd look at the hot work permit, and, and try and understand any, any vulnerabilities there. Are, are they doing a, Is, is that hot work period continuous throughout the period? Is that hot work? So if people are going off for breaks, et cetera. And then importantly, how long is that post hot work, um, period as well? And also understanding, um, elements. Are they using thermal image cameras to monitor for hotspots and things like that as well? And also, other potential ignition sources could be lighting, could be the process itself, could, could bring a, an ignition source as part of the, part of the process. So we try and break all those ignition sources down into their constituent parts and understand, controls that, that underpin those ignition sources.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 41:11

H-how do you consider the human part of the ignition scenario whether it's accidental or intentional?

Gary Howe 41:18

that's a really good question. I guess when we, when we have losses, we, we look into that, quite deeply in terms of sort of causation a- and We'll, we'll send specialist forensic investigators in to, to have a look at, a look at that. So, you know, we, we, we get to un- understand that, whether it is a deliberate fire-setting or it is down to a piece of machinery or, or human error as well. And generally, as part of that post-fire loss investigation, we, we do get informed of that sort of data, and get a sort of fairly accurate picture where we can

Wojciech Wegrzynski 41:51

I mean, it, it's actually very interesting for, for me in Poland. We, we have a feeling we're in a state of, uh, some sort of hybrid conflict And, there is a lot of ongoing operations in different types of facilities, especially those related to military, in which some sort of, arson activities are, are taken. And, and we had multiple instances of that. A- a- actually, a lot of what you say in here, uh, when you prepare very well for, for the incidents, accidents, and, and trace those, pathways and, trace, uh, the damage, et cetera, make sure that the vulnerable parts are the most protected, et cetera, you're also kind of protecting yourself from th- this type of operations in a way, because, uh, it, it's just a, a good facility in the end. It's, it's, it's very diff- like, there was this famous image when a guy tried to burn down the EU flag, but he couldn't because of the EU, uh, regulations for fire retardants in flags, you know? And, and, and it, it kind of leads to, to, to, to a outcome which is more manageable in, in case of this, uh, hostile activity.

Gary Howe 42:59

Yeah, and, and I think we spend, we spend, quite a bit of time on site focusing on both arson prevention, and also, areas such as, um, security as well, 'cause the two are intertwined as well, looking at suitable fencing I mean, I, I know for, I think most insurers would probably say that arson still forms a fair percentage of overall losses in the course of a year as well. So yeah, we, we spend a bit of, we spend a bit of time looking at what's stored externally to the premises and how close as well and, and, and the impact on the environment and can people access the premises, CCTV, external cameras, et cetera.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 43:35

And, and, you worry at all about, like, war-like operations, like drone attacks, et cetera?

Gary Howe 43:41

Yeah, there's something, again, I guess that's, we could put that into sort of the emerging, emerging risk, uh, category, couldn't we? It's not something that I've, personally experienced myself, but I guess that's something that sh- should be on our radar moving forward

Wojciech Wegrzynski 43:54

okay, uh, l-l-let's move through your list. How many points do you have on your survey list?

Gary Howe 43:59

Yeah. So typ-typically for, for fire, we would, we would, we'd focus around sort of 1920 type,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 44:06

Okay

Gary Howe 44:07

factors. So I'll just pick out a couple more, if I may, on, on, on

Firefighting Water Supplies And Collapse Risk

Gary Howe 44:11

some of those. And, another area we, we focus on is around sort of firefighting water supplies as well. So we would look at, um, areas like have we got a whole time or a, or a part-time fire brigade, attending the, the, the site? Where, where are they located? What kind of travel time have they got to get to site? Some of the heavy industry sites I've got, you know, they could be It could be hours before you get a fire brigade on, on site. But also looking at available water supplies as well. Have they got available hydrants or open water supplies, lakes, rivers, et cetera? And, and also thinking about the likely scenario that credible scenarios that the fire- firefighters may undertake in order to mitigate the loss. Now, one of the, one of the challenges we know is around the, structural performance of unprotected steel frame buildings. So if, if there is no life risk within the buildings, then, you know, the general expectation is that

Wojciech Wegrzynski 45:09

Hmm.

Gary Howe 45:09

will not risk their lives to for there's no savable lives as well. So again, that, that forms part of that analysis and, and thinking about the expectations. Is it realistic to, have, um, you know, is that gonna result in a, in a total constructive loss of that building? if it's a non-sprinkler building, for example, and we've seen, we've seen cases of that, of warehouses where they've, they've met the minimum fire safety requirements and sprinklers have been fire engineered out, and there's been total losses of those buildings and you can see on the, on the video footage of firefighters just applying water from the outside, because of the danger of structural collapse, and ultimately they, they will, uh, collapse. So, so that, that's one of the kind of additional challenges we, we see really. Sometimes, um, you know, fire engineered solutions can be, a challenge where they're, they're really just for, for life safety only.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 46:05

When there was this huge fire in Copenhagen in Børsen, the, the historical, uh, like market, the, the lead firefighter said that they held the perimeter at 16th century firewall, you know, because that was designed in 16th century, and 400 years later, it, it, uh, worked, uh, as, as intended because they were able to, uh, stop the fire exactly at that line. So, so I can imagine if you don't have a wall or, or secure thing to, to hold the line, it, it eventually becomes very, very difficult.

Credible Loss Scenarios For Underwriters

Wojciech Wegrzynski 46:38

Um, you've mentioned in, in this interview many times something called credible loss scenarios. how does that tie into the process? What, what, what it exactly contains?

Gary Howe 46:49

Sure. Yeah. So credible loss scenario is really there to, support the underwriting function really for the underwriter, um, sitting in London. They, they really want to know, the impact of, of differing fire scenarios and to enable them to understand the, the risk itself and, and the financial exposure to them to allow them to underwrite, and offer terms. So, kind of areas we, we, we look at, we would undertake scenarios with, fire protection impaired, so there's an impairment on the system and, and we do find impairments on site. And so the fire, the fire growth and spread is mainly dependent on, uh, physical barriers and separation in the building. But we'd also build in, say, typically a fire brigade res- uh, delaying as well because they're, they're tied up on. And so that, that kind of credible loss scenario uh, would form a number,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 47:45

Okay

Gary Howe 47:45

financial number of both property damage and business interruption time. So that would be the sort of first credible

Wojciech Wegrzynski 47:52

m- but do you also assess the likelihood of that scenario? That, that's from where credible comes in, right?

Gary Howe 47:58

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, very much so. So we would, we would, we would want, want to understand the likelihood of that based on the controls that are in place as well. But I guess, we can, we can still have a, a, a low likelihood and a high severity. Mm. So we have to be, um, sort of careful there really in, in, in many ways. So but yeah, absolutely. What, what... Which control measures, are in place that, that make us feel more

Wojciech Wegrzynski 48:26

that, that sounds like an extremely interesting job for a fire engineer to, to come with those, uh, outcomes. Uh, do, do you have a system to, to study them? Or do you go like probabilistic Monte Carlo one million scenarios and, and just have a distribution off of them?

Gary Howe 48:43

so essentially the, the, the s- the starting point really for the risk engineer is, based on their, their initial, um, attempt at the, at the credible loss scenario really is based on their, their experience as well. So they're having, having a wealth of experience of many, many different types of industry and shall we say lots of boots on the ground experience really enables, enables the risk engineer to, to come up with, with those credible scenarios based on their, their knowledge and the historical fire data, that we have at hand as well to understand just realistically what, what would be the size of the fire in property damage, what, what, what would be the damage to the building, what would be damage to the contents, and what would be damage to the machinery. And then importantly, what is then the impact on days, week, months on the, on the operation of the business, um, how long do we think that would take for that business to be reinstated?

Wojciech Wegrzynski 49:40

is it... I, I, I would say this is something that's gonna shift more towards modeling in the future for you. Uh, my prediction, not knowing anything about your industry, but because w- what you've described sounds very much like our life safety problems we have right now, because you also look into kind of credible scenario. "Oh, I have a fire in this compartment and I have to evacuate this building. What my, what is my R-SET? What is my A-SET?" Like, what's the credibility of this scenario? Can it even happen, you know? And, uh, one way to escape it is the experience and, you know, this qualitative assessment of an engineer based on their knowledge. And a- another way of, e- escaping is, like, just do a million simulations and, and just Monte Carlo the probabilities, you know? And, and you can tell that, you know, this is actually 95th percentile of all cases, uh, uh, w- which is a very, very interesting, approach in here. In those, uh, but in those low scenarios, it goes beyond the building because you also must account the, the supply chain, the business continuity, the reputation, the environment. So everything you said before is tied to, to this, right?

Gary Howe 50:48

Yeah, absolutely. So what, what we're doing, we're, we're really forming a narrative for, for the underwriter, a very interconnected narrative so that, that we can explain to them the, these are the potential fire scenarios. This is, this is sort of how big, how much, how bad, and these are the control measures in place for, for mitigating, um, the risk. And then we would, would then look at, what that realistically looks like in sort of pounds and pence in terms of, having the reserves available to, to ultimately pay, pay that claim. So, um, so it's a really important part of the role. Uh, and then absolutely we would need to connect that to re-reinstatement of key plant and equipment, reinstatement, of the building and how long that would realistically take. And then procurement of specialist equipment such as transformers, and also the wider supply chain or, or dependencies as well and the impact that has on them servicing their customer. So, that's a critical one, one as well. If, for example, a power station can't generate electricity, clearly that has an impact on their clients as well as its understanding, um, that that vulnerability,

Wojciech Wegrzynski 51:59

how that propagates

Gary Howe 52:00

it propagates and how, how what is the impact to from our client to their client and what is the impact on them. They may have, they may have a financial, contract in place that, with, with their client as well, and the impact that may have on them.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 52:15

Uh, okay, so this part goes to the underwriter. What, what does client, does client receive something from you at the same time? Like, uh, recommendations or, or a report?

Recommendations Follow-Up And Trust

Gary Howe 52:26

Yeah, absolutely. So we, we, we always One of the things we always do is at the end of the visit is we always sit down with the client and, and we go through methodically each of the risk improvement, um, actions. So a lot of the actions that I give may just be advisory ones, that may not even appear in the report. So I might just say, "We, we talked about pallets being too close to the building. Is there an opportunity for you to put some painted lines in the yard and put pallets out there?" and you know, they may follow that up with a photograph or a video, video later on that they've, they've completed that. And other perhaps more important ones, we would, we would discuss those with the, with the client, um, explain the benefit of those, the benefit to them, and give them, uh, reasonable timescales to, look to complete those. And work with them as well, so some of them might be, upgrades to the sprinkler protection, and we, we would work with alongside them to Uh, or building extensions or any kind of changes, we would ac- we would often act as technical assurance. So they would send the designs to us as part of that process for us to review, comment on, and support them

Wojciech Wegrzynski 53:32

Have you ever insured a fire laboratory? That must be fun to work with. No,

Gary Howe 53:40

thousands of site assessments in my time in insurance.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 53:42

because, you know, you're, you, you're s- you're speaking about those things that I, in my head, I see my fire laboratory, which is a fire hazard deliberately kind of, you know? S- uh, stacking all those things. And we actually have a combustible building, which is hilarious, like all the experience we had. So I, I, I think we were going through, through quite a struggle to get, uh, this building insured. But I know when you, when you explain those things, I, I cannot stop replaying in my mind, like, how would this conversation look in my own facility, and it would be hilarious. Like, I'm sorry, like that would be a very, very interesting one.

Gary Howe 54:20

one. Yeah. I've never quite thought about that. Yeah. Fire in a fire laboratory, yeah.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 54:25

Yeah. Y- y- yeah, well, be- because I, I remember one time from some of those conversations, they came a re- request that we install fire alarm in the laboratory hall, and I'm saying that's gonna be a hell of a smart fire alarm because it's not enough that it picks a fire. It has to know whether it's intentional or not. So yeah. But anyway, Gary, um, w- we have to wrap up, but I have one final question

Risk Engineering Careers And Skills

Wojciech Wegrzynski 54:49

for you. is it a nice career? A lot of young people are listening to the, to the podcast, you know, and, uh, a lot of people are eyeing on what they're gonna do in the future. are you... I'm not saying it right now, but are you hiring fire safety engineers? Do you, do you look for fire safety engineering graduates? do they find jobs in your industry? Is it a nice career path for a young person to consider?

Gary Howe 55:10

Yeah, we have, we have, uh, we have a graduate program within Zurich, and I've worked alongside, a number of the graduates now have come into risk engineering as well. So what they normally do a rotation and go through various parts of the business, and some of them, which I'm really pleased about, choose to come into risk engi- risk consultancy, risk engineering. I'm really biased. I've been in insurance a long time, and I sa- I would say I have the best job in insurance because

Wojciech Wegrzynski 55:36

Okay

Gary Howe 55:37

If I'm at a dinner party, someone says to me, "What do you do?" Well, I, I do industrial tourism

Wojciech Wegrzynski 55:42

Oh yeah.

Gary Howe 55:42

in, in my, in my 22 years in Zurich, I've seen everything from, uh, a small school up to a nuclear power station and everything in between. And I'm, and it's still now, after all this time, I'm still fascinated by the different types of sites I get to see around the world globally, and I think it's a fantastic, interesting job. If you've got a, a fascination with how things are made or how things are done, there's a program on on telly how, I think, How Things Are Made, and you get

Wojciech Wegrzynski 56:09

yeah

Gary Howe 56:09

And I say, "That's my job. I get to see the things

Wojciech Wegrzynski 56:12

firsthand with explanation

Gary Howe 56:14

whether it's gold bars coming out of a mine, or it's car manufacturing, or it's, uh, or it's, uh, poppadoms coming out of a food factory. Uh, it's a fantastic career, and I would really, I'd really recommend it to any young person 'cause, you know, on the face of it, insurance sounds a bit stale and boring, but risk engineering is a fantastic. job. And I've traveled the world and, worked with some fantastic clients and still love the job even now.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 56:38

D- d- fantastic. I'm, I mean, I also love my job, and I, I think a lot of people, uh, share the same opinion about their jobs in fire safety. it's a secret society, and once you get in, it's hard to get out. Would you say it's, uh, easier to teach a fire safety engineer proper risk kind of skill set? Or if you get like, chemical processing engineer who's very QRA, uh, fit but has no idea about fire and they have to learn fire. Like, what, For your particular position, uh, w- which is a better starting point or, or it's the same?

Gary Howe 57:12

Well, I would say, I would say, um, a lot of the people I work with, I've got a, a chemical engineering or a lot of them have mechanical engineering degrees or geology degrees, and I, I think there's a, there's a natural bolt on to train them and support them in building up the competencies on fire. I think there's a natural fit for them because they've got, they've got that base engineering knowledge and they've got that, sort of, uh, uh, minimum undergraduate level. So I think, I think with- with without too many problems, yeah, we, I- I undertake mentoring support for just those kind of engineers so that they can, they can get the required competency, uh, uh, fire safety competencies for when they're undertaking their site visits

Wojciech Wegrzynski 57:53

Yeah. And, and one more, one more question, if I may. Uh, you, you may share the same observation as me or maybe you don't, but L- looking at the, the, the fire engineers that, that graduate, that come into the market, and that, that was also my case, uh, as, as for myself. We, we know awfully lot about fires and awfully lot about, you know, modeling and smoke plumes and flashovers and back drafts and what, et cetera. W- well, we're not really taught that much about buildings. How does a building work? How do you build a building? Like, what does And, and I, I feel And when, when I'm contemplating, like, what, what could make big difference in the quality of fire safety engineering, I, I would say, like, we're already quite good at fire-fire stuff, but we're nowhere as good at building-building stuff.

Gary Howe 58:40

Yeah, I, I really agree. I think, I think, back, to my undergraduate degree, I th- uh, I think that, uh, uh, greater, greater emphasis, especially on structural fire engineering would've been very advent- I think it's very advantageous to, many fire engineers in sort of understanding, in a more sort of, a, a more meaningful way the, the, the design, uh, construction and behavior of buildings in under fire conditions as well. And so I think it's a really fascinating and interesting area.

Wojciech Wegrzynski 59:08

Because looking back at this interview, what you are doing is not just fire engineering a, a problem. You, you, you take a very specific case, site-dependent case, client-dependent case, and you just apply fire engineering over around it, trying to understand it from the fire engineering lens. That's a beautiful fire engineering, Gary.

Gary Howe 59:32

Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. Yeah. The, the, you know, there's so many factors that feed into that, that site assessment and definitely that fire safety engineering is an important component of that overall assessment at the end of the day. And it's important that we, we have the necessary competencies to understand, the whole fire safety picture holistically

Wojciech Wegrzynski 59:52

Fantastic. Thank you so much, Gary, for coming to the Fire Science Show and sharing the world of, insurance and, and this part of, of property protection with listeners. I, I hope someone got inspired today to become a, a fire risk engineer in a insurance company.

Gary Howe 1:00:07

Yeah. Thank, thank you for the invite, uh, Wojciech, really appreciate it

Key Takeaways And Next Week

Wojciech Wegrzynski 1:00:11

And that's it. The thing I've learned in here is the crisp, extra crisp distinction between the life safety requirements and property protection requirements. I really like it. I mean, in the end, a lot of life safety measures are also there to protect property, and a lot of property protection measures are there to save lives. So it's not very exclusive in that term, but kind of the focus is different. And, uh, you know, I, I like that on the property protection end of the spectrum, you can put a monetary value, you can calculate the risk likelihoods, the expected losses, and based on that, make decisions. That's a very interesting way of thinking about the problem. And a lot of fire safety engineering that we're doing out there, I personally do out there, is very often very much protection of property because life is already protected. And yet we, we have s- we're struggling deciding the solutions to, to be chosen because we do not have those arguments in our hands about the economic effectiveness of proposed solutions about, you know, the potential outcomes, losses, scenarios, credibility, et cetera. I, I really, really like that. And I really like the, credible scenario consideration, where it's not just the worst combination of stuff that can happen, but a reasonably analyzed, understood three of events that leads to, an outcome that's likely, and then we understand what this outcome means. This is very powerful. I, I think, like I hate it, uh, that, that I, I don't want to preach, uh, the, the insurers how to do their job. I, I, I started this episode by literally knowing nothing about it. But I see so much overlap with what we do, and I, I see so much potential in the tools that we have discovered to be extremely powerful, the multiparametric analysis, the, uh, sensitivity studies, et cetera. I think those tools will penetrate this industry as well. And, uh, I hope the tools that the industry, the insurance industry is using will penetrate fire safety engineering in its, uh, let's say, traditional sense. So a very interesting discussion. I hope you've enjoyed it. And if you're, uh, someone who's at the beginning of their careers and someone who's maybe just started their education, I guess, uh, a career in the insurance industry doesn't sound that bad at all. And, uh, yeah, perhaps that's something to consider. Anyway, that would be it for today's Fire Science Show, and next week, uh, more fire science coming your way. I will be at the SFPE seminar in Venice, uh, where we'll be talking about historical preservation and fire safety of historical buildings. So, uh, if you're there, make sure to, to, to say hi and, and let's have a chat, and I'm very looking forward to that, uh, event. Thanks for being here with me today. Cheers. Bye.