First Recovery & Disaster Recovery FAQs

We provide no consultancy, nor do we visit your premises. Our philosophy is that virtually all businesses in distress will require the same basic services in the immediate aftermath. So we’ve ‘shrink-wrapped’ a suite of services, then practiced them over and over again, so you don’t have to.

Many of our competitors will insist on providing a bespoke package comprising the same services, but in centres where each ‘seat’ is sold 20 or even 30 times over – so there is no guarantee you will get the space you’ve paid such a lot of money for in any case.

You may feel that as you have (say) 50 staff, you would want to have them all moved in the event of a disaster.

You should be aware of two factors:

1. Your insurer WILL NOT pay for you to move all your staff until they have had time to assess the extent of the damage, so if you move all your staff you may incur costs which you cannot later reclaim.
2. First Recovery is designed to be the first step in helping your business to survive: it provides a platform from which you can communicate in the first instance with your staff, suppliers, and most importantly, customers. First Recovery allows you, and your insurer, to move forward to a fully recovered business.

First Recovery partners 2024:

• Allianz (UK)
• Travelers Insurance Group

No. Your insurer provides ‘indemnity’ – that is, once the disaster is over and you are (hopefully) back in your offices, all the expenses you have incurred, once they have been scrutinised by the Loss Adjuster working on behalf of the insurer, will be paid in the form of a cheque. Service delivery is not what insurers do – it is your responsibility.

Any major disaster which renders your offices unfit for occupation in the medium term, i.e., longer than one week. This is because we will make our stand-by offices available to you for a minimum period of one month.

Flood, fire, terrorist attack, major accident – all these are circumstances under which we will respond.

Please see our full terms & conditions - you should be aware of the circumstances under which we will respond, and those under which we cannot. In order to respond, there must be direct physical damage to your business premises, rendering them unfit for continuing business for a period of at least one week. This is because we will make our stand-by office premises available to you for a minimum period of one month.

It is for this reason First Recovery will also not respond should the Emergency Services deny you access to your offices for a short period (for example, if gas canisters are in or near a fire close to your premises, the Fire Service will most likely close the entire street for a short time).

Power failure is almost always remedied within a day or two, so would not be an appropriate circumstance to which First Recovery would respond.

If you purchase your contract with First Recovery directly from us, we offer a 48 hour service level to provide the full suite of services. However, we have never taken as long as 48 hours to deliver – in fact we have never taken more than 24 hours.

Our service levels via insurance policies are the same or better, depending upon our contract with the insurer.

IT equipment minimum specification:

• PCs/Laptops - Intel® Core i3™ processor or equivalent, 8 GB RAM. PCs include 24" monitor, keyboard, mouse.
• One PC may be designated as a server.
• 24-hour soak tested.
• Delivered, pre-loaded, configured with Microsoft® Windows 10™ or Microsoft® Windows 11™ & MS Office™.
• All PCs Networked with one A4 laser printer.

We hold bonded stock of this equipment delivered against our Service Level Agreement

When you request First Recovery assistance, we will pay for the cost of the offices and IT rental for one month, plus all costs and expenses of personnel attending such as IT technicians and our Event Manager. We will also pay the deposit on the offices: we will however ask you to reimburse us for this expense, and the deposit will be returned to you at the end of the rental period. This is to protect us from costs maliciously incurred such as high telephone bills, or other costs not in our control such as any damage incurred.

Your insurance company should reimburse you for any other costs you may incur, assuming you have an ‘Increased Cost of Working’ and ‘Business Interruption’ (ICW/BI) provision in your policy. It is worth checking your policy to see if ICW/BI is covered.