Is the fire risk assessment the only sure way a business can protect its premiums in case of a fire.

Hi, A comprehensive Fire Risk Assessment is only the first measure in protecting your insurance premium in case of fire. It is worhtwhile ensuring your insurers are copied in on completed documents including your RA and Fire Action Plan for your building. Also consider liaison visits and seeking guidance/ approval from your Local Fire Authority. Being able to demonstrate through maintained records, to an Insurance Auditor that you provide the required information, instruction and training on all aspects of the prevention and action on discovering a fire to interested parties would also indicate to your insurer you have done all that is reasonably practicable to negate the risk of fire to your business. As a final point make sure Building Services have records to demonstrate maintenance is carried out on the fire detection and control systems i.e. Fire Alarm Panel, smoke heads, emergency lights, sprinklers etc. Trust this helps

Thanks for the above opinions, they all agree with my views. I too know of either poorly written fra's or even no fra at all but the premises fire arrangements are very good, it is as if the fire risk assessment has been done in the head but not on paper. I do support the fra as while undertaking it the actual fire arrangements can be updated and improved. Problem could arise when there is a fire and the insurer asks to see the fra? Is there any evidence to suggest insurance companies have refused to pay out following a fire where there was no fire risk assessment?

If the insurance company can cut a payout then they will look at anything and everything to suggest the customer has been negligent. I worked on a case which represented the second biggest fire loss of that particular financial year. The fire in a large high value goods export warehouse was believed to be arson and a forklift driver was nicked. At his trial, the minimum wage forklift driver was represented by a top barrister (even I had heard of him). It turned out that the insurance company were picking up the barrister's massive fee. Why would they try and get this alleged arsonist off? If the case was proven as arson, the insurance company had tens of £millions to pay out. However, if he insurance company could influence the jury to acquit this arsonist, they would try to prove it was the forklift's charger unit was the origin of the fire. As no maintenance records were available for the charger, negligence could be used to reduce the claim. It's a murky old world out their in insurance land and it is essential that all fire safety records are maintained at all times. It's also useful to achieve old records off site so that (as in this case) if recent records are destroyed, there is some historical evidence of good practice.