How quickly can 14 displaced households be decanted after an escape of water?

households placed

14

households placed

to the first placement

3h 12m

to the first placement

until all 14 were housed

< 24h

until all 14 were housed

below equivalent hotel long-stay cost

31%

below equivalent hotel long-stay cost

consolidated invoice to the insurer

1

consolidated invoice to the insurer

What happens when a burst rising main displaces an entire block on a Friday evening?

At 16:42 on a freezing January Friday, a claims operations manager at a major UK household insurer called our 24/7 response line. A rising main had failed in a low-rise apartment block in Greater Manchester. Water had penetrated every floor. Fourteen households were being evacuated as we spoke — among them nine school-age children, three pets and one wheelchair user.

The insurer’s usual hotel supply was already saturated by a city-centre event weekend. Every hour without a plan meant families sitting in cars, duty-of-care exposure, complaint risk, and open-ended hotel spend the loss adjuster would later have to defend. Reinstatement was estimated at 6–18 weeks depending on drying times — far too long for hotel living.

What did the first 24 hours look like?

1. 16:42, Fri

   First call from the insurer’s claims team. Requirements matrix opened: household sizes, schools, pets, accessibility, parking.

2. 17:10

   Matrix agreed. Our emergency desk began ringing pre-vetted operators across Greater Manchester.

3. 19:54

   First six families checked into hotels within school-run distance of their addresses — 3h 12m after the first call.

4. 22:15

   Eleven of fourteen households placed for the night, including the wheelchair user in an accessible ground-floor room.

5. 14:00, Sat

   All fourteen households housed. Pet-friendly placements confirmed for the three households with animals.

6. Day 5

   Every household transitioned from hotels into serviced apartments at negotiated long-stay rates for the reinstatement period.

How did every household get placed so quickly?

Speed on a decant is never luck — it is pre-work. Our emergency accommodation desk runs 24/7, and the operators we call have already been vetted for safety certification, insurance and quality before any claim exists. That means the first hour is spent matching families to properties, not qualifying suppliers.

• A hotel-first, apartment-second strategy: families are safe within hours, then moved once into the right long-stay property — no repeated mid-claim moves.
• A welfare requirements matrix per household: school catchments, pets, accessibility, parking and proximity to work.
• Direct billing to the insurer from night one — no policyholder outlay, no folio chasing, one consolidated invoice.
• A named single point of contact for the claims team, and weekly occupancy and cost reports to the loss adjuster.
• Negotiated long-stay apartment rates that came in 31% below the equivalent hotel cost across the claim.

How does a managed decant compare with sourcing hotels directly?

“Every family was somewhere warm before we closed the file that night. The weekly cost reporting made my conversations with the insurer straightforward for the entire claim.”

Questions clients ask about this work