This resource is written for residents: a process note you can pin on the noticeboard or forward by e-mail, telling anyone who spots damage in the building or in their flat what to do. The text is deliberately simple – in an emergency nobody reads paragraphs. Background for the property manager: how a claim is reported and who reports it.
- The five steps of the resident's process: mitigate the loss → photos → alert the property manager → report to the right insurer → keep the documents.
- Claims on the building's policy are reported by the property manager; damage inside a flat is reported by its owner, to their own insurer.
- The primary route for reporting is always the insurer's claims line and online claims portal.
The text to pin up
WHAT TO DO IN CASE OF DAMAGE? – [Name and address of the building]
1. Stop the trouble, if you can do so safely. Water: the stopcock or the main valve. Electricity: switch it off. Danger: call 112.
2. Take photos. Of the damage and of its source – before anyone repairs or cleans up.
3. Tell the property manager: [name, phone, e-mail]. They handle the report that concerns the building's insurance.
4. Damage inside your own flat should be reported to your own home insurer – on the insurer's claims line or online claims portal, as soon as you can.
5. Keep everything: photos, invoices, letters – claims handling will need them.
To be filled in: the property manager's contact details. There is no need to pin up the building's policy number – that is best kept with the manager.
Why this is a good process
Because it follows the cast list: the resident does what they are fastest at (mitigating the loss, taking photos, raising the alarm), the property manager does what is theirs to do (handling the building's policy), and every report goes where it works fastest – on the insurers' own channels. Any version beats the “someone will sort it out” state of affairs; and this one also serves the documentation needs of claims handling from the very first minute. It is rounded out by the information template written for residents: from that they also learn what the building's policy covers – and what they are better off insuring themselves.
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