According to RIMS, after you've completed your assessments, strengthening and retrofitting vulnerable buildings is the first step you should take in preparing for a quake. (Credit: SDubi/Shutterstock)
It can be easy to forget earthquakes are a threat. While there are 20,000 earthquakes each year, in some areas they happen so sporadically that decades can pass between major quakes. When they do strike, however, they can cause devastation that leaves customers, agents and claims professionals alike scrambling to clean up the mess. With earthquakes, as with most things, the best offense is a good defense, and a recent white paper from RIMS addresses the best ways to prepare for seismic activity to minimize your risk and damage when things get shaky.
Assess your risk
There are a variety of assessments that can be used to determine, and therefore mitigate, risk when it comes to preparing structures for earthquakes, the white paper explains. These include desktop assessments, site assessments, remote risk assessments, third-party peer review, damage assessments, business continuity planning and CAT modeling. The key to any of these assessments is to find structural engineers you trust, preferably with experience in earthquake risk mitigation, to help you discover what you can do to best prepare your buildings.
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Brittney Meredith-Miller
Brittney Meredith-Miller is assistant editor of PropertyCasualty360.com. She can be reached at [email protected].
