04 Sep Ten-point plan for fire safety reforms

Ten-point plan for fire safety reforms

Responding to the issues around London’s Grenfell Tower fire, the NSW Government announced a Ten-point plan to ensure unsafe building products are taken off the shelves, buildings with cladding are identified and notified and that only people with the right skills and experience can certify buildings and sign off on fire safety. Minister for Better Regulation, Matt Kean, said it was the government’s priority to put consumers first and keep them as safe as possible in their homes.

The Ten-point plan is as follows:
1. a comprehensive building product safety scheme that would prevent the use of dangerous products on buildings|
2. identifying buildings that might have aluminium or other cladding
3. writing to the building/strata managers or owners of those buildings to encourage them to inspect the cladding and installation of cladding, if it exists
4. NSW Fire and Rescue visiting all buildings on the list, as part of a fire safety education program, to gather information to prepare for a potential fire at that building and provide additional information to building owners
5. creating a new fire safety declaration that will require high-rise residential buildings to inform state and local governments as well as NSW Fire and Rescue if their building has cladding on it
6. speeding up reforms to toughen the regulation of building certifiers
7. creating an industry-based accreditation to ensure only skilled and experienced people can carry out fire safety inspections
8. establishing a whole-of-government taskforce to coordinate and roll out the reforms
9. instructing all government departments to audit their buildings and determine if they have aluminium cladding, with an initial focus on social housing
10. following up with local councils on correspondence they received in 2016 from the NSW Government after Melbourne’s Lacrosse Tower fire.

In the event that a Strata Manager receives correspondence from the NSW Government (Point 3), you must disclose this information to your Strata Insurer to avoid a potential reason for a claim declination. Section 54 of the Insurance Contract Act enables the insurer to decline a claim to the extent the non-disclosure has prejudiced their interest.

If you would like more information regarding disclosure and the implications of cladding materials to your insurance, please contact your CRM Broker on 1300 880 494.

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