A Decision Deadline Is a Reopening Tool

To the members of the Resilience Council

Who I am and what happened

I am Gregorio Yap, Chair of the Resilience Council. I write from Tacloban, Philippines, for the members considering RS-001, the proposed Reopen Standard. My position is direct: a future standard must require a decision on an insurance claim within 30 days and bridge funding within 10 days of a declared disaster. It must also require continuity-planning support that works for micro businesses.

I do not offer this opinion as the story of one business. The record before this Council belongs to many owners, in many places, who have reported what happens when a disaster interrupts ordinary operations. Their circumstances differ. The sequence that concerns me is recognisable: a disaster stops or restricts trading; an owner tries to establish what support is available; necessary decisions remain pending; and the time spent waiting is also time in which the business must meet immediate costs and make choices about reopening.

That sequence is why the question before us is not simply whether an owner has a policy, a recovery plan, or access to a loan in principle. It is whether decisions and usable support arrive soon enough to help preserve the possibility of reopening. A process that eventually reaches the right answer may still fail the owner if the answer comes after the opportunity to act has passed.

RS-001 is not a promise that every business can be saved, nor a proposal to remove all assessment of a claim. It is a proposal to make the time dimension visible and accountable. When a business is trying to reopen, an

unanswered claim and an unprovided bridge can shape the outcome just as surely as the physical damage.

What the evidence shows

As of 25 October 2026, the Resilience Council has 153 members from 47 countries. It has received 376 reports from 49 countries. The median amount at stake is approximately US$3,910. The largest country totals in the report record are the United States, 65; Spain, 24; Canada, 24; the Philippines, 23; the United Kingdom, 17; India, 16; Japan, 16; and Mexico, 14. There were 104 reports in the 30 days preceding the reporting date.

Every one of the 376 reports in this council’s record concerns a disaster situation. The reported team sizes are: just me, 36%; 2–9 people, 45%; 10–49 people, 16%; and 50–249 people, 3%. The record therefore includes owners who work alone and businesses with teams, but it is weighted toward the smallest operations. For those owners, continuity is not an abstract planning exercise. It is a practical question about what can be done, by whom, and with what resources when normal operations are interrupted.

These figures do not establish that every claim is delayed, that every delay leads to closure, or that all reported losses have the same cause. They do establish the scale and geographic spread of the evidence submitted to this council. The median amount at stake also matters: the reported stakes are not confined to exceptionally large losses. A relatively modest amount can be consequential to a small operation when it is needed to restore the means of earning income or to keep obligations current.

The Council’s pattern review has tested the RS-001 reports against five dimensions: Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread, and Corroboration. RS has reached four of five tests; corroboration remains pending. That status must be stated plainly. The evidence is substantial enough to continue developing a response, but it is not a licence to claim that every proposition has been independently established. A standard can be designed to gather better information and be reviewed as further

evidence becomes available, without pretending that the present record answers every question.

There is also relevant wider evidence. UNDRR reports that small and medium-sized enterprises bear approximately 75% of business disaster losses, and that disaster risk reduction can reduce losses by up to a third.¹ A UNDRR report citing a Japanese METI survey states that 8% of prepared SMEs had not recovered sales, compared with 19% of unprepared SMEs.² These findings do not prove that a 30-day claim deadline or 10-day bridge-funding requirement alone will produce a particular recovery rate. They support a more limited, important conclusion: preparedness and the conditions for continuity matter, and small businesses face a substantial share of the consequences when disasters disrupt economic activity.

For that reason, the Council should treat time-bound decisions as part of resilience, not as a technical detail to be deferred until after a disaster. A continuity plan that identifies needs but cannot connect an owner to a timely decision or interim support is incomplete. The proposed deadlines give the standard a testable point of focus: whether the claim decision and bridge support arrive within specified periods.

How the law in my country and elsewhere handles it

The material available to this opinion does not identify a Philippine statute, regulation, or binding domestic insurance rule that sets the claim-decision and bridge-funding deadlines proposed in RS-001. It also does not provide a comparative survey of such deadlines in other countries. I will not fill that gap with assertions about legal rights or requirements that are not in the record. Members should distinguish this opinion’s policy position from legal advice about any particular claim or jurisdiction.

The international reference in the Council’s dossier is the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. Its paragraphs 30(o) and 36(c) address integrating business continuity into business practice, with particular attention to MSMEs.¹ That framework gives a clear direction for resilience policy: continuity should be part of how businesses prepare and

how institutions support them. It does not, on the facts available to us, establish that an insurer in the Philippines or elsewhere must decide a claim within 30 days, or that bridge funding must be provided within 10 days.

That distinction is important. A broad commitment to business continuity does not itself tell an owner when a decision will be made, what happens while the decision is pending, or how quickly support should become available after a declared disaster. RS-001 can give practical content to the continuity objective by specifying service expectations and recording whether they are met. The standard should be transparent about being a proposed standard for adoption, not a statement that the same deadlines already apply under law everywhere.

The evidence cited above offers a reason to take continuity seriously, rather than a substitute for legal research. The Japan survey comparison is evidence about preparedness and sales recovery; the UNDRR loss estimate concerns the burden on SMEs. Neither should be presented as a legal rule. If the Assembly wishes to make claims about domestic law or compare national insurance regimes, it should commission or receive jurisdiction-specific evidence before doing so.

The strongest argument against my view and my answer

The strongest argument against fixed deadlines is that disaster claims are not uniform. Damage can be extensive, records may be lost, access to a site may be unsafe, and the facts needed to assess coverage may not be immediately available. A strict deadline could encourage rushed decisions, create pressure to approve claims without adequate review, or fail to account for unusual events that affect many claimants at once. Bridge funding also raises real questions: who provides it, how it is assessed, whether it is repayable, and how to avoid treating a temporary payment as a final decision on coverage.

Those are serious design questions. They are not a sufficient reason to accept indefinite uncertainty. The standard can require a decision within 30 days while defining what counts as a decision and requiring the insurer to explain the outcome and the basis for it. Where a claim is not accepted in full, the owner should receive a reasoned determination and information about the next step. Where information is missing, the process should say what is needed and give the owner a clear way to provide it. A deadline does not require an unreasoned answer; it requires the process to reach an accountable point.

Nor should the 10-day bridge-funding requirement be confused with a final ruling on liability. Its purpose is to address the interval in which the owner faces urgent continuity needs and the final claim assessment may still be underway. The standard must say clearly how bridge funding is treated, what minimum information is needed to request it, and how any later adjustment is handled. Those safeguards can be developed through consultation. They should not erase the basic expectation that a declared disaster triggers a prompt route to interim support.

Some will argue that one pair of deadlines cannot fit every disaster, policy, business, or jurisdiction. I agree that implementation needs to recognise different settings. But a standard without measurable time limits cannot tell owners what to expect or the Assembly whether practice is improving. The deadlines should be a clear baseline, with transparent reporting of exceptions and reasons. Any exception should be documented, limited, and reviewable—not an open-ended escape from the standard.

There is also a risk that the standard could promise more than institutions can deliver. We should not write an assurance that every business will reopen, that every claim will be paid, or that 10-day funding will cover every loss. The obligation is narrower: decide claims within a defined period; make a bridge-funding route available within a defined period after a declared disaster; and provide continuity-planning support that is usable by micro businesses. Those are commitments about process and access, not guarantees of commercial survival.

My position clause by clause

First, claim decisions within 30 days. RS-001 should require an insurer to issue a decision on a submitted disaster-related claim within 30 days. The standard should define when the clock starts, require a written outcome, and require the reasons for any denial or partial acceptance to be stated. If information is incomplete, the insurer should identify the specific information required promptly rather than leave the owner to guess. Any pause or exception must be recorded with its reason and duration.

Second, bridge funding within 10 days of a declared disaster. RS-001 should require a defined process through which a micro business can seek bridge funding within 10 days after a disaster is declared. The standard should make clear that interim support is not the final claim decision. It should establish simple, proportionate information requirements, explain the terms of any funding, and require a written explanation when support is refused or delayed. The detailed funding model should be settled through public consultation and should not be invented in this opinion.

Third, continuity-planning support for micro businesses. The standard should require practical support that an owner can use before a disaster: how to identify critical operations, understand immediate continuity needs, keep essential records, and find the relevant contact or assistance route. The standard should not assume that a micro business has a dedicated risk team or the capacity to navigate a complex programme. Support must be accessible in form and proportionate in burden.

Fourth, transparency and learning. Implementing bodies should report whether the 30-day and 10-day expectations were met, how exceptions were handled, and what obstacles repeatedly prevented timely action. Reporting should protect members’ anonymity and avoid disclosing identifiable business information. The point is not to turn owners’ hardship into a public case file. It is to establish whether the standard works and where it needs revision.

Fifth, review against evidence. The Council should assess the standard after implementation against reported experiences and the five-part pattern test. It should distinguish claims about process from claims about outcomes and should be willing to revise provisions if evidence shows that a rule is unclear, inaccessible, or producing unintended effects. The fact that corroboration remains pending makes disciplined review more necessary, not less.

These clauses are connected. A prompt decision without an interim route can leave an owner waiting through the period in which immediate choices must be made. Bridge funding without clear terms can create fresh uncertainty. Planning support without a usable response after a disaster can become a checklist without practical force. RS-001 should therefore treat decision time, interim support, preparedness, and transparent review as parts of one reopening standard.

What I ask

I ask members of the Resilience Council to support a future RS-001 that includes, as explicit requirements, insurance claim decisions within 30 days and bridge funding within 10 days of a declared disaster. I ask you to retain continuity-planning support for micro businesses as a core obligation, not an optional addition. I also ask that we state carefully what the evidence does and does not establish, and that we build reporting and review into the standard from the beginning.

We should not ask an owner to treat waiting as a recovery plan. We should not promise that deadlines will remove every loss or solve every legal dispute. We can, however, insist that a process intended to support reopening has clear time limits, gives reasons, offers a route to interim help, and learns from the people expected to use it.

Notes and sources

Sources

1. UNDRR, Supporting disaster risk reduction and resilience practices for small and medium-sized enterprises
2. UNDRR, Resilience of SMEs report (including Japan METI survey findings)