A flood does not wait for a declaration

Letter from the table

RC/RS/2026/T.22
5 August 2026
To the Resilience Council

I read Lina’s letter from Iloilo and recognized the distance between a business being able to reopen and a form saying the claim is still being assessed. I am writing to support the Reopen Standard, but to ask the Council to amend it before it becomes a draft. A standard that depends too heavily on a formally declared disaster could leave out the owners who are already counting days without income.

On 17 June this year, heavy rain flooded the ground-floor workroom I use for my small operation. Water came in at the entrance and spread across the floor. It was not a dramatic scene from far away. It was a wet floor, equipment moved onto raised shelves, and the calculation that every hour spent cleaning was an hour I could not spend working.

I checked PUB’s flood updates and kept photographs of the water and the damage. I contacted my landlord, arranged an electrician to inspect the affected fittings, and notified my insurer. I also saved receipts for cleaning, replacement items and temporary arrangements. The immediate outlay came to about S$2,700. I estimate that cancelled work and interruptions cost a further S$3,400 over the following weeks. Those are not tidy numbers: some costs were paid, some were estimates, and some lost work cannot be invoiced after the fact.

The insurer asked for documents in stages. I sent what I had, then waited while the claim was reviewed. I do not suggest that an insurer should decide a claim without checking it. But as a small operator, I had no dedicated claims staff and no spare cash set aside for an indefinite wait. I could not point to a single public rule that guaranteed my business a decision within 30 days; I had to work through the policy wording and

the insurer’s process. Meanwhile, rent and ordinary bills did not pause because the floor had been cleaned.

I tried to keep the operation going with the least expensive temporary arrangement I could manage. I spoke with the landlord, shifted work where possible, and called suppliers to explain why payment might be late. I considered borrowing, but borrowing to cover a short interruption can turn one flooded week into months of repayments. I did not receive bridge funding. I am not claiming there is a Singapore-wide disaster grant that I applied for and was refused; my point is that, in my case, there was no quick, dependable cash route between the damage and the eventual insurance decision.

That is why I support the principle of RS-001: a decision within 30 days, bridge funding within 10 days, and practical continuity support. But I ask the Council to amend the trigger and the meaning of “decision.” In Singapore, a localized flood may be serious for one street or one unit without becoming a formally declared disaster. PUB’s public flood information can help document conditions, but a small business should not have to wait for a declaration designed for a much larger event before it can seek help.

I would amend the draft in three ways. First, allow a verified local interruption to qualify: evidence could include a relevant public flood alert or incident record, photographs, and reasonable confirmation from a landlord, insurer or other appropriate source. The list should be flexible, so an owner is not excluded because one particular notice was never issued. Second, require a clear claim timetable: a decision within 30 days after the required documents are complete, with a written update at regular intervals and a specific list of anything still missing. Where part of a claim is not disputed, the standard should encourage a prompt interim payment rather than making the owner wait for every item to be settled. Third, make bridge funding available after verified interruption, not only after a formal disaster declaration. The amount and checks can be proportionate; speed does not have to mean no safeguards.

The Reopen Map could help make these distinctions visible. For each report, record the date of interruption, the first meaningful payment or claim decision, and the date the business resumed normal work. Keep the location broad enough to protect members. If the map shows that owners in several places are waiting for the same kind of document or

decision, the Council can describe that pattern without naming a company or exposing a member.

One UNDRR estimate says small and medium-sized enterprises bear about 75 per cent of business disaster losses.¹ That figure is a reason to take small firms seriously, not a reason to assume every flood looks alike. A standard should work for a major emergency and for the less visible event that empties one owner’s cash reserve.

Notes and sources

1. UNDRR, “Supporting disaster risk reduction and resilience practices for small and medium-sized enterprises.” ↩

Sources

1. UNDRR — Supporting disaster risk reduction and resilience practices for small and medium-sized enterprises