We have seen this movie before.

A major property loss seldom involves only bricks, machinery and stock. Architects, engineers, quantity surveyors and other professionals are usually required to design, specify and supervise the reinstatement.

Where the Architects and Other Professional Fees extension has been selected, the current Material Damage wording can pay qualifying professional fees incurred in reinstating insured property.

The extension is limited to 15% of the amount payable for the physical loss or damage and remains subject to the applicable policy limits.

A business with a R50 million building should therefore not assume that the professional fees provision in its underlying fire policy automatically follows into SASRIA. The SASRIA extension itself needs to be checked and the sums insured for extensions like Professional Fees need to reviewed and increased where SASRIA permits this.

A serious claim can require substantial work to quantify and substantiate the loss.

The Material Damage Claims Preparation Costs extension can cover reasonable costs associated with preparing, presenting, substantiating, certifying or verifying the claim where the extension has been selected.

There is an important restriction. The costs of external consultants are not covered unless SASRIA gave prior written approval for those costs.

Employing a claims consultant first and asking SASRIA to pay the bill afterwards may leave the client with an uninsured expense.

After a major loss, getting rid of what has been destroyed can itself be expensive.

The appropriate SASRIA extension can provide cover for qualifying demolition, debris removal, site clearing and related costs following insured damage.

This should be valued realistically. A large industrial fire can involve demolition contractors, heavy equipment, waste removal, safety controls and significant site clearing costs before rebuilding even begins.

These costs should not be assumed to be automatically covered simply as they appear under the underlying fire or material damage policy. The SASRIA extension itself needs to be checked and the sums insured for extensions like Debris Removal and Demolition Costs need to reviewed and increased where SASRIA permits this.

Businesses change during the year.

New machinery is installed, premises are improved and additional assets are acquired. The current SASRIA Capital Additions extension can cover qualifying alterations, additions and improvements, other than stock and materials in trade, up to 15% of the relevant sum insured, subject to the wording and overall policy limits.

The extension still needs to have been selected and shown on the SASRIA schedule.

A large acquisition should therefore not simply be left to an automatic capital-additions provision. Material increases in values at risk should be disclosed and insured properly.

The SASRIA extension itself needs to be checked and the sums insured for extensions like Capital Additions need to reviewed and increased where SASRIA permits this.

Rebuilding costs do not stand still.

Where the Escalation extension has been selected, the sum insured can increase by the percentage stated in the SASRIA schedule.

The percentage is important. If construction costs, imported machinery prices or replacement values are rising faster than the selected escalation percentage, the client can become underinsured, especially with the time it takes to reinstate the property extend past 12 months (some buildings, like heritage sites, can over 36 months to reinstate).

Escalation and inflation should therefore be treated as protection against reasonable increase in asset sums insured due to rising costs, including factoring in appropriate escalation to the sums insured due to the time it takes to reinstate the property.

Security Costs can be particularly valuable when an insured SASRIA event, like a large, mad angry mob, is moving towards or directly threatening insured property.

Where the extension has been selected, SASRIA may cover reasonable security costs, before the property has may be damaged. There must already be an active and operative SASRIA Defined Event and the threat of damage to the insured property must be sufficiently immediate that protective action is reasonably necessary.

The previous 10 km radius requirement no longer applies. However, this does not mean precautionary security costs are automatically covered whenever unrest occurs. General concern, media reports, remote disturbances or a possibility of future unrest will not meet the test.

Where circumstances allow, discuss additional security costs with your risk advisor as soon as possible. If immediate action is reasonably necessary to protect the property, SASRIA does not state that their prior approval is required. However, SASRIA will assess afterwards whether the event, threat, security provider and costs you authorised met the requirements of the extension. If they do not, some or all of the costs could remain for your own account.

A property owner may suffer more than the physical repair cost. If insured SASRIA damage makes a building untenantable, the owner may also stop receiving rent.

Loss of Rent is included automatically under most underlying Buildings Combined sections. SASRIA can provide corresponding Rent Receivable cover, but that underlying benefit does not automatically carry across to SASRIA. The SASRIA Rent extension must be selected, the additional premium paid and the applicable rental limit shown on the SASRIA schedule.

SASRIA Rent Receivable can also be selected as its own extension under the SASRIA Material Damage policy. In other words, it does not have to simply copy the rental limit provided by the underlying Buildings Combined policy. A different SASRIA rental limit can be selected where appropriate, subject to SASRIA’s policy terms and rating.

Rental income can also be insured separately under SASRIA Business Interruption, at a premium, where that is the more appropriate structure.

The important point is that the rental exposure should be properly assessed and the correct SASRIA option and limit selected rather than assuming the automatic rental benefit under Buildings Combined will simply follow.

Under the previous SASRIA extension structure, limited automatic cover was available for qualifying extensions, including Fire Extinguishing Charges, subject to fixed rand limits and an overall aggregate. For policies subject to the new wording from 1 August 2026, that automatic allowance no longer applies.

A major fire can create significant costs before rebuilding even starts. These can include charges for municipal or private firefighting services, specialist equipment, extinguishing media, water tankers and other emergency measures used to fight the fire.

Under the current SASRIA wording, Fire Extinguishing Charges are a separate extension. The extension must be selected, the additional premium paid and the limit shown on the SASRIA schedule. SASRIA can then cover reasonable fire fighting costs for which the insured is legally liable, subject to the selected limit and policy terms.

There is no single sum insured that suits every business. The sum insured should reflect the realistic maximum cost of fighting a serious fire at the particular premises. A small office and a large warehouse, factory or high hazard operation clearly do not have the same exposure. The likely use of municipal or private fire services, specialist contractors, water, foam, tankers, pumps and other emergency equipment should be considered when selecting the limit.