Bushfire season – be prepared
City Rural is fortunate to have CGU Insurance as one of our selected insurers for our rural and farming clients.
With CGU, our clients get additional benefits and useful tools that are not available with other insurers. These tools help to ensure safety on the land and that the insurance covers undertaken are correct and suitable for our client’s circumstances.
We are pleased to provide this recent update and advisory from CGU Insurance as once again we enter that time of year when ‘bushfire’ is front-of-mind with rural clients.
CGU Insurance: Bulletin 1/11/14
Large areas of Australia are once again under threat of serious bushfires. Each year, bushfires cause severe damage to property, assets and lives. Unfortunately for us all, Australia is predicted to experience an increasing number of fire events over the coming years, with fire seasons starting earlier and running longer than in previous years.
While State and Territory protocols vary, the common precaution is to prepare and plan. If you live in a high-risk bushfire area, planning and managing risks will decrease the risk of damage to life, property and assets.
Use the CGU bushfire checklist to help your preparations.
Bushfire Attack Level (BAL)
The Bushfire Attack Level system was introduced in 2009 following the Black Saturday bushfires. BAL ranks the different intensity levels a home may experience during a bushfire. It takes into account the region where the home is located, the type of vegetation around the property, the distance the property is from different vegetation types and the slope of the property.
BAL’s range from BAL-Low to BAL-FZ (Fire zone), with each level in between requiring more fire resistant building materials. Not factoring in BAL ratings when calculating insurance leaves owners open to the problem of underinsurance.
There is a free calculator available here that allows you to calculate your BAL. It’s important that you ensure you have all the facts about your property before deciding what level of insurance you require.
Contact the friendly team at City Rural for more information about how you can protect your family and property from the financial loss of natural disasters.