What does reopening mean when the claim is still open?

Letter from the table · RC/RS/2026/T.27 · 26 July 2026

To the Chair and members of the Resilience Council,

I write in support of RS-001. I also want to ask a question about strategy: when we explain that a business needs to reopen, how will we make clear that reopening is not one moment, and that an insurance claim decided later may arrive too late to make it possible?

On 11 April this year, after several hours of heavy rain in Málaga, water came in from the street through the entrance to the small rented room where I work. It was not a dramatic scene. There was no single moment when everything stopped. I moved what I could, took photographs, and called for help with the water outside. By the next morning, I was trying to work out whether the room could be used safely and how to pay for the first repairs.

My first list was modest but still difficult: €680 for electrical work, €430 for cleaning and drying, and €1,350 for damaged tools and other work materials. The total was €2,460, before counting the days when I could not work normally. I could pay part of the immediate costs, but doing so left too little for rent and ordinary bills. I asked whether I could postpone a payment, arranged the repairs in stages, and tried to keep up with work where possible. Those steps reduced the immediate pressure; they did not replace the money or time lost.

I notified my insurer and kept photographs, invoices, and a record of the date and damage. Because the water had entered from the street after drainage was overwhelmed, I also looked into whether the event came under the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros, which handles certain extraordinary risks, including extraordinary flooding, where the relevant insurance conditions are met. I understood that eligibility and the amount of any payment would need to be assessed; I did not treat the route as a guarantee. Under Spain’s Insurance Contract Act, an insurer

generally has to pay the minimum amount it may owe within 40 days after receiving notice of a claim. That is not the same as a full settlement within 40 days, and it did not give me cash for the first repairs.

I checked the information I could find from local and regional authorities, too. I could identify ways to report the damage and make inquiries, but I could not identify a payment that would reliably reach me in the first days after the flooding. Perhaps another person in another municipality would find a different route. That is why I think the Council should gather details about what actually happens, not assume that a route on a website is the same as money available to reopen.

The proposed standard’s two time limits speak to two different needs. A decision on an insurance claim within 30 days would give an owner a clearer answer about what support is coming. Bridge funding within 10 days of a declared disaster would address the period before that decision, when urgent work, rent, and other fixed costs do not wait. Continuity-planning support for micro businesses matters as well, especially if it helps owners prepare records, identify who to contact, and make a simple plan before a storm.

For me, the important change is not that every claim would be paid in full, or that every damaged business would reopen in ten days. It is that an owner should not have to spend weeks guessing whether help is coming while deciding which essential bill to leave unpaid. A prompt, reasoned decision is different from a promise of a particular outcome. A bridge payment is different from compensation. The standard should say plainly what each is meant to do.

My question to the Chair is this: while the Council is still gathering evidence, what will we use as the measure of success? I suggest that the Reopen Map record not only the date of an incident, but the dates of first contact, a usable decision, first emergency funds, and the return to safe operation. Those are separate points in a person’s experience. If we count only the day a door opens, we may miss the debt and interrupted work that follow the owner inside.