Home Improvements

Home For Business Risky Business Podcast Home Improvements

Paul Martin and Colin Rooke discuss risk reduction or risk management for the average home owner.

Listen to the full episode here, or read the full transcript below.

Paul Martin:

Welcome to Risky Business: Commercial Insurance with Butler Byers. This is Paul Martin, your host. Joining me today, Colin Rooke, the commercial risk reduction specialist with Butler Byers. And Colin, we’ve, over the course of this program, covered an awful lot of ground from cyber to pick a topic, we seem to have covered it. But it sort of struck me, maybe we should… So I thought, “Well, I’m going to explore this with you.” Risk reduction or risk management is not just a commercial issue. It applies to personal stuff too, like your house. And you guys, I mean, this program is mostly about commercial insurance, but you obviously have personal lines and you insure homes and that kind of stuff. And it struck me, is there a risk management kind of plan that the average homeowner should be talking to you guys about, should be giving a little bit of their brain power to devote a little energy to that thought process? And my guess is you likely have some handy tips that a homeowner can deploy as well to take some of the risk out of just looking after your own property.

Colin Rooke:

Yeah. I attended a conference and one of the speakers was from the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. And it was funny because he said, “I do a lot of these, and I give out all this great information, and probably no one in the room,” you know, so it’s all insurance people, “probably nobody in the room has heard of this or will use any of this information. But it’s great stuff, and it’s completely sponsored by the insurance industry.” And right away, I was saying to myself, “I use the website all the time.” A lot of our commercial tools come from sites just like this, right? Organizations that devote all of their time to protecting business across Canada or North America, and across all different industries.

So again, a lot of the information that I receive and, certainly, some of the tools come from organizations just like this. In fact, I think the very first tool we ever discussed having a disaster recovery plan six years ago, I’m referencing these tools available from this website, but the session took a turn and he started talking about all the work they do for homeowners and that we… That it’s not just for insurance… The sites aren’t just for insurance people. I mean, anyone can go to the site, and it really got me thinking, “Yeah, we need to talk more about what the homeowner can do to protect their home.” Like in Saskatchewan, we’ve got volatile weather, heavy rain, strong winds, we can have flash flooding at times. And being in insurance, sewer backup and any sort of overland flooding, water’s a really big issue in our industry.

And so, what we have available to all of our clients is, depending on sort of the concern you have, a very, very in-depth guide that will walk you through the problem, talk about, “Is this problem getting better in Canada? Is it worsening the areas most affected?” And there’s just really, really great tips and explanations on things you can do, regardless if your house is 100 years old or you’re just building it, to proactively address these issues and really ensure that, when there’s a big storm coming through, you aren’t the one worried, or high winds, you’re not worried that your roof is going to be in somebody else’s backyard.

And some of these, I mean, frankly, a lot of these tips and tricks I hadn’t considered, or never did find in my research. So if someone that spends most of their time working on risk management, if it opened my eyes, there’s a lot of great tools and resources, again, that we can share with anyone wondering about, “I’m worried about extreme heat,” or “I’m wondering about the best way to heat and cool my home.” And so, just a lot of information available that can really help our customers.

Paul Martin:

Well, that’s the thing that struck me as we were discussing this was, you live in this world. I mean, you do this for a living every day. You’re really focused on how do you deal with the various risks and how do you mitigate them. And for you to come away, having learned something about, as a homeowner yourself, if you learned something, then the rest of us probably should be… The odds are, we’re going to learn something too. And well, it might be kind of fun, even if we just walk through some of the learnings that you made, some of the tips that you’ve got. And I guess we can just start with something as simple as, “Where do I start if I’m a homeowner and I’m hearing this, and I’m kind of interested in what you’re talking about. What’s the first step I should be taking?”

Colin Rooke:

Yeah. And these documents do explain how to better protect your home. And one that’s apparent across all these tools is, “Have you had your home inspected by a home inspection service?” And if you think about it, most people, when they sell their home, some will do it proactively to look for things or, of course, the seller will order a home inspection done, but why not do it today? Why wait until you sell your home eight years from now to learn that you had water seeping in, you had improper insulation, the R-value of your insulation isn’t what you thought it was, there’s gaps, there’s faulty wiring, electrical. And so, it was just really eye-opening to me to say, right, why aren’t people… Why aren’t we recommending people that every, I don’t know, five years, whatever interval, just to say, “I’m going to get an expert, and they’re going to look for, well, moisture, they’re going to look for heat escape, they’re going to get on my roof and talk about the type of shingles I have.”

For example, there’s impact resistant shingles. And for, call it some strange reason in Canada, the shingles don’t get labeled as such like they do in the United States. But in these guides, there’s a way to determine if your shingles are impact resistant. And if anyone’s listening, and I’m sure a lot have had this happen, where a hailstorm comes in and the roof is completely damaged. If you knew that, “The shingles I purchased were able to withstand hail the size of a golf ball,” I think a lot of people would sleep better knowing. And so, this actually walks you through how to determine which shingles have been tested and literally what size of hail can they take, which I found quite interesting.

Paul Martin:

It is interesting. And you were saying earlier, and sort of smiled when you said that, in the insurance industry, water is a big issue, and you’re thinking of flooding mostly, but what came to mind to me was hard water called hail. We hear a lot about that around here. And I mean, we’re not prone to things like, well, hurricanes, which are more around oceans and that kind of stuff, but we still get mighty good wind, and we get mighty good hail and that kind of stuff. We’re probably a bit of a hail capital in this part of the world, I would think, so likely that pops up quite frequently.

Colin Rooke:

Yeah, it’s funny, you mentioned hail and wind, so had I not gone through this conference… So traditionally, you look at a flat roof, particularly a flat roof, and I’ve done this for 10 years, and you say, “Okay, well, flat roof is more prone to hail damage.” So you want the higher arc because of the glancing blows, which, I’ve told people that, but then, if you don’t factor in… But that only occurs if there’s no wind. In high winds, 70, you know, like 30, 40, 50 kilometer winds, the flat roof is good because now the flat roof is getting the glancing blows and the steep roof is standing out like a brick wall.

Paul Martin:

It’s the flat surface when the hail’s coming in sideways.

Colin Rooke:

Yeah, it is the flat surface. And again, for someone that spends a lot of their free time, evenings and weekends learning about risk management to say… I’ve been telling people on the homeowner’s side, or certainly, what I’ve been saying is accurate, but not entirely accurate, you have to factor in wind. And so, these guides are just really great for opening your eyes, and if you’re interested in stats, you know, where’s the most hail damage occurring and how often, and is it getting better in the magnitude of storms? It’s just, it’s very good homeowner’s information.

Paul Martin:

All right, Colin, we’ve got to take a little break, but I’m really fascinated by this so we’ll come back and pick this up after we take a short break for some commercial messages. You’re listening to Risky Business: Commercial Insurance with Butler Byers. Back after this.

Welcome back to Risky Business: Commercial Insurance with Butler Byers. I’m Paul Martin, and joining me, Colin Rooke, commercial risk reduction specialist with Butler Byers. Colin, before the break, we were talking about that thing we learned in high school that we were pretty sure we would never use, which is the angle of incidents equal to the angle of whatever it is, just that sometimes, our conventional wisdom isn’t necessarily 100% accurate. But we’re finding out about things like, is a flat roof better than one with a pitch on it, and that kind of stuff. What else were you finding about stuff that surprised you when you looked at these tips and ideas for protecting your home?

Colin Rooke:

I find it all surprising, and I think it’s just, it’s great. It’s just great reminder stuff, or it might be things that you thought you knew or you did know, and you go through this and you say, “That makes a lot of sense.” Like for example, when looking at landscaping, it’s better to have deciduous trees, like leafy trees that shed seasonally, when you’re worried about heat loss, extreme heat, extreme cooling. So in the summer, you’ve got these, of course, giant leafy trees shading your house. And there’s a guide about how much shade you should sort of be after, the distance from the home, the angles, that sort of thing.

But then, when you say, “Okay, so then, in the winter, they lose those leaves and you can heat the home using the sun, which is lower.” And there’s tips and tricks on the type of window and the type of window coverings. But then furthermore, you read through this, and again, we’re just talking about heating and cooling now, and you say, “Okay, coniferous trees or hedges are good for sort of a wind break, but they’re neither good for shade or heating in the winter.” But also, they’re terrible when you’re worried about fire, wildfire. And so, they’re way more likely to go up in flames than any sort of leafy tree, because they retain more water. And then you move on to, “Okay, well, how do I protect my home from wildfire or fire?” And they talk about how far an ember can travel, but they also say, “Okay, well, if an ember travels three kilometers in the wind and hits a deciduous tree, it probably will not light that tree, whereas a coniferous tree, it certainly will.”

So again, you think of… Well, they use a lot of examples of the homes in Fort McMurray, and really in-depth examples. And there’s these yards where every single home around it had burned, and then you’ve got this perfectly maintained home that had no damage whatsoever. And you think, “Well, how the heck did that happen? It must have been a perfect storm.” And Noel, he walks us through that example and says, “This had to do with the trees in the yard, the landscaping use. Like, for example, I am a fan of wood mulch. I have a lot of it. It’s not a great idea. And a lot of people have wood mulch trails right to their home. That’s not smart.” And so you just, when you walk through these examples and you realize like, “Yeah, had I thought about this at all from a risk management perspective, I probably would not have made a paper trail of wood straight to the shed attached to the home.” And so, it’s just really eye-opening.

And we talked about… I think people love walkout basements. I mean, they’re horrible from a loss control perspective, water issues, but there are things you can do about it if you find yourself in a walkout today. And so, I just think that, for anyone looking to learn more, or if there’s just something that keeps you up at night, whether you’re out, you’ve got a cabin somewhere and you’re worried about wildfire, reach out to us. Again, I worry about water all the time. We talk about sun pumps and backflow valves, but I’ve got a guide that explains backflow valves, finally, at a level where I can truly understand exactly how they work. I know it’s a great risk management tool, but this talks about the installation process and how the different sewer systems work. And so, if you have any questions, or you really like to sort of nerd out on risk management like I do, I can really help, depending on what you’re worried about.

Paul Martin:

Well, I’m fascinated by your idea of getting a home inspector in just to give it a once-over, and your observation that, you know, “Why would you do this when you’re selling it?” Because the buyer wants you to do it. I mean, the buyer obviously has an interest in this, but pretend you’re buying your own house right now and go do an inspection, right? You’re about to live in it for the rest of the time you’re about to live in it, so why not just conduct yourself that way? It’s a very interesting concept. And you’ll find some pretty cool things, probably.

Colin Rooke:

Well, and another sort of interesting point is with… So for some reason, the value of the goods in basements is continuously increasing at a higher rate than the value of the goods upstairs, meaning people are putting the good stuff in the basement. And so, the challenge there, from a loss control perspective, every inspector would say, and certainly this presenter would say, “You want the good stuff as high up in the air as possible to avoid water,” but on the home inspection side, if you’re going to put all your expensive stuff, your antique, your collectible cards, your pinball table, build your man cave, so to speak, down there, don’t you want to know right now if you’ve got cracks in the foundation or water pooling outside that you’re completely unaware of so you’re not in a position where, after heavy rainfall, snowmelt, you realize that two thirds of the value of your house is wet or, heaven forbid, covered in sewage?

Paul Martin:

That’s an interesting point. I hadn’t thought about sort of the value per floor in your house of the goods that we accumulate. And I guess, back to your original point, when you said you were surprised at what you learned at this thing, and those kinds of observations are the surprising things that you learn when you check this thing out. It’s really quite interesting. And we’ve got maybe a minute left, Colin, and you talked water, water all the time. And I thought, “What about downspouts?” I mean, those things are always plugging, filled with leaves, I mean, all that stuff. They’re kind of a problem all the time. Are there any thoughts on that?

Colin Rooke:

Yeah, absolutely. From a cosmetic perspective, for example, the downspouts that go right into the weeping tile look great, but it’s, frankly, a horrible idea from a water control perspective. If the weeping tile fails, collapses, or just gets overrun, or the sewage system gets overrun, you have no choice but to pump water down into the foundation. And so, the main takeaway from this presentation was, if you have those, get rid of them immediately. Do you want a cosmetically pleasing home that’s got six feet of water in it, or do you want a couple of downspouts moving the water at least six feet away from the foundation? And I will say that the basement value comment, I got that right. If my basement was flooded, I’ll be okay. Everything is high up. And so, I didn’t miss that one, but I’ve often done that. I don’t have downspouts that are neatly tucked away, and it’s always annoyed me. And now I feel just a little bit better about these spouts reaching out across my yard. But again, it’s just great information. It’s just things that, if you really thought about, you maybe could have caught onto, but good refresher.

Paul Martin:

Colin, as always, very interesting information. I want to thank you for that. You’re listening to Colin Rooke, commercial risk reduction specialist with Butler Byers. This is Risky Business. I’m Paul Martin. Thanks for joining us.