Make safe: the temporary solution that could save your property
When a property has been significantly damaged, it can sometimes take a bit of time until the full repair work can be completed. In the interim, a make safe is vitally important.
So what exactly is a make safe? Here’s the lowdown.
What is a make safe?
A make safe is a quick, temporary fix to make a property safe and prevent further loss or damage after an event has occurred.
The first consideration is always safety. It’s imperative to make sure the property is safe, so customers and the public don’t get hurt.
While extreme weather events, fires and water damage will usually require a make safe to be put in place, incidents such as malicious damage and burst pipes may too.
In some cases, a make safe can mean a home remains habitable. In extreme scenarios, it can secure a property prior to demolition.
Make safes can include roof wrapping, roof tarping, securing damaged windows and doors and reinstatement of essential services. Plus electrical isolation and testing of circuits, plumbing isolation, temporary fencing of potentially hazardous areas, structural intervention after building impact, securing of collapsed ceilings, tree removal and asbestos containment and removal.
Related article: What to expect after lodging a QBE home building insurance claim
Getting a make safe
When a building sustains damage, it’s important to let your insurance company know as soon as possible. That way, not only can the claim be assessed, and repairs authorised, but a make safe can begin.
QBE operates a triage system, to ensure home and contents insurance customers who are in need get a make safe in place as soon as possible.
Once you call QBE to inform us of the damage, help will be on its way.
If it’s urgent, the required trades from our panel of suppliers will usually be there that same day, even if it’s out of hours, otherwise it’ll generally be the next day.
Of course, natural disasters are part and parcel of life in Australia and can cause significant damage to many buildings. When cyclones, storms and earthquakes hit, make safes are carried out every day.
During recent cyclones, meanwhile, roof tarps were commonly used to make safe roofs that had lost tiles.
In some cases this was adequate, in others we may need to engage engineers because of requirements to make sure the building complied to code.
Don’t DIY your make safe
While it may be a natural reaction to attempt a make safe yourself to minimise any further damage to your property, it’s not advisable. Remember, the safety of you and your family is the number one priority, so let the experts do their job.
The professionals have all the right equipment and the experience to assess the damage and take the necessary steps. We can assess the situation and get our experts there quickly – it’s simply not worth taking a risk.
Related article: Water damage – does my home insurance cover that?
Sometimes, a make safe just isn’t possible
In some cases, it’s not possible to create a make safe – the damage to the property may be too great – and at that point plan B springs into action.
If we can’t make the property safe for the customer to live in, or to operate their business from, we’ll get a call from the tradesman to inform us that temporary accommodation is needed and it might be at that point we engage a loss adjuster.
When a make safe is quickly administered to a property before a full repair can take place, it can be the difference between being able to continue living – or working – in a property and not.
A home and its contents are the most valuable asset most of us have, and when an incident occurs we want to do whatever we can to minimise that damage.
Do you have adequate levels of home and contents insurance in place? It’s always a good idea to evaluate your policy regularly.
