Pricing Property Cover? WhenFresh Has Live Cladding Status Data

Getting accurate data on the types of cladding used in buildings is essential for any property insurance brand, so this news from WhenFresh is worth checking out;

Having launched the UK’s first National Cladding Database in February 2023, WhenFresh has announced that the dataset has now more than doubled in size to provide the current cladding status of 1,122,004 individual properties within tall multi-dwelling units (MDUs) across the UK. The initial dataset, launched in February, provides the cladding status of 485,234 individual dwellings within MDUs of 18m or more in height – but this has now been expanded to the current total of 1,122,004 dwellings with the addition of MDUs of less than 18m and, in particular, those between 11m and 18m in height, which fall into the Government’s ‘Mid-Rise Scheme’ for remediation.

Mark Cunningham, WhenFresh CEO & Co-Founder, said:

“We expected the original cladding dataset launch to be well received, but we’ve been staggered by the level of interest from mortgage lenders, insurers, reinsurers, and other parties. We’re therefore fully confident that the investments made in expanding the reach, breadth, and depth of the dataset as it continues to evolve will bring significant further benefits and risk insights for those who need to properly understand property cladding risk.”

FRESH DATA

WhenFresh also stresses that this is a LIVE dataset, with monthly updates from the rolling programme of property inspections that are carried out by the team of over 600 RICS qualified surveyors, employing both physical property visits and expert, remote/data-driven assessments. This means that the cladding status of each of dwelling is constantly updated, with additional dwellings also being added as inspections continue to be undertaken.

The surveyor team has allocated each dwelling a cladding status, based on the following classification:

GREEN – Building has no cladding. (Specifically: EWS1 form recorded in Cladding Database with classification A1, A2 or B1, or considered to be out of scope as per RICS’s Cladding Guidance Note).

AMBER – Building potentially has cladding, merits EWS1 inspection. (Identified as potentially in scope, as per the RICS’s Cladding Guidance Note, no EWS1 form held currently).

RED – Building has cladding. (EWS1 form recorded in Cladding Database with classification A3 or B2, or other known adverse factors from alternative sources).

Due to the nature of the dataset and the rolling programme of surveyor inspections, the cladding status of each dwelling is subject to change over time. For example, a dwelling may originally have been categorised as AMBER, where the surveyor’s original inspection using a range of remote tools (e.g., satellite images, drone footage, etc.) and data sources (e.g., building records) was not fully conclusive.

The WhenFresh UK National Cladding Dataset can be appended at individual dwelling level, to any file of addresses (or UPRNs, UDPRNs, Title numbers, etc.) for flat-file delivery, or can be accessed via the WhenFresh API, either in isolation, or in combinations with any of the 100s of other property data items WhenFresh holds.