Building, Homeowner Insurance Focus of Research

University of Western Ontario Tests Effects of Hurricanes, Floods

Aug 23, 2009

Building and homeowners insurance cost adjusters may soon take a lesson from hurricane, snow, mould and flood testing at a University of Western Ontario research center.

The Insurance Research Lab for Better Homes at the University of Western Ontario is the first of its kind. More commonly called The Three Little Pigs Project, this innovative research center is located at the London, Ontario, Canada airport.

The center is enclosed in a large hanger that can be moved on tracks. The house test model is an average family home of 1,900 square feet with two stories and four bedrooms. Inside the house are 60 pressure boxes that simulate hurricane-force loads and attach to a frame surrounding the home.

Building Insurance, Homeowners Insurance Adjusters Watch Research Results Closely

The Better Homes project builds on experience and research developed at the University of Western Ontario over the past 40 years in the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory.

Better Homes is also the first research project to realistically simulate wind on houses and light-framed structures. Wind testing allows researchers to assess the overall integrity of a structure as well as the buildings’ individual parts. The center will also investigate other damage-related elements:

Study on these issues is expected to provide breakthrough learning and inventions of the instrumentation and equipment needed to measure these effects.

Snow, Flood, Hurricane, Mould Effects Studied, Could Affect Insurance, Building Costs

Test structures are put through the paces. The simulated home is subject to winds as strong as a category five hurricane which creates wind moving at about 200 miles per hour. By comparison, Hurricane Katrina, which caused devastation in Florida and New Orleans in 2005, was also a category 5 hurricane.

Researchers will use findings from the center to determine how basic additions and amendments, at low costs to homeowners, can be made to improve the safety of houses.

For example, after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 researchers determined that roofing panels flew off owing to improper nailing of plywood to the roof trusses. The simple, and cheap, solution was the addition of more lines of tar paper to the roof panels. Nails then line up with the trusses easier.

The $7 million (Cdn.) research center is funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Ontario Innovation Trust and a half-million dollar donation from the Insurance Board of Canada. In-kind donations came from the Canadian Institute for Steel Construction.

University of Western Ontario Joins With Insurance Industry for Research

Insurers will use the results of this research to deal with extreme weather and natural disasters such as hurricane, flood and any resulting mould issues.

The project is also supported by a joint industry initiative with the University of Western Ontario called the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, which was founded to promote how losses can be mitigated. The Institute disseminates research results and influences public policy change.

Insurance cost adjusters may soon have valuable new research that will make a difference in building and homeowners insurance costs resulting from hurricanes, snow, mould and floods. A new research center at the University of Western Ontario is helping to take any guesswork out of how to best construct homes for increased safety.

The copyright of the article Building, Homeowner Insurance Focus of Research in Canadian Universities is owned by Shelley Aylesworth-Spink. Permission to republish Building, Homeowner Insurance Focus of Research in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.