Letter from the table: The water left; the waiting did not

To the Resilience Council,

What happened

On Thursday, 9 April 2026, rainwater came into the room where I work in Nairobi. I had checked the Kenya Meteorological Department’s forecasts during the week. The rain was expected. What I had not prepared for was water pushing in faster than I could move things out of its path.

I lifted what I could onto shelves and carried boxes to a higher part of the building. The water still reached equipment and damaged materials I needed to work. By the time it drained, the floor was covered in mud. I spent the next morning clearing it, taking photographs and making a list before anything was moved. My landlord arranged an electrician to check the wiring. I also kept the receipts for cleaning, transport and replacements. I did not know which photograph or document would matter later, so I kept everything.

The direct costs I could document came to KSh 162,000: KSh 118,000 for equipment and materials that needed repair or replacement, KSh 21,500 for cleaning and drying, and KSh 22,500 for transport and temporary storage. That does not include the income I missed while I could not work normally. I am not counting that as a claim because I could not calculate it reliably.

I used KSh 44,000 of my savings and borrowed KSh 90,000 from relatives to get back to work. I still had rent and other regular bills to meet. The loan was not a grant or a business plan. It was the quickest way I could find to cover immediate costs, and it became another monthly obligation just as I was trying to recover.

The claim and the gap

I notified my insurer on 10 April and sent the claim and supporting documents on 13 April. On 17 April, I was asked for additional photographs and proof of the damaged items. I sent those the same day. An assessor visited on 24 April. As of 5 September, I had received neither a final decision nor a date by which one would be made.

I am not saying that every delay is a refusal, or that an insurer should pay a claim before checking it. I understand why there must be a review. But a process with no clear decision point leaves the owner carrying all the uncertainty. I kept asking what else was needed and whether the file was complete. Each time I followed up, I had to set aside work to gather the same dates and documents again.

Kenya has an Insurance Regulatory Authority, established under the Insurance Act (Cap. 487), and that matters: insurance is not an informal promise between strangers. But my immediate problem was practical. I needed to know whether the claim would be accepted, partly accepted or rejected, and what evidence remained outstanding. I was not asking anyone to skip the policy terms. I was asking for a decision I could plan around.

I also learned that a weather warning and a declared disaster are not always the same thing for a small business trying to access help. I could point to the rain, the damage, my photographs and the work of clearing the room. I could not point to a national disaster declaration that I knew would unlock bridge funding for my particular loss. If support depends only on a broad declaration, a small but serious local event may fall between the cracks.

What would change

I support RS-001, the proposed Reopen Standard. A decision on an insurance claim within 30 days would not guarantee that every claim is paid. It would guarantee a timely answer, including a clear explanation if information is missing or the claim is not accepted. That alone would help an owner decide whether to borrow, repair, replace or challenge a decision.

Bridge funding within 10 days of a declared disaster could have reduced the amount I had to borrow and helped me restore basic operations sooner. I ask the Council to consider how the standard can also work for verified local damage when there is no national declaration: for instance, by accepting appropriate evidence from local authorities, emergency services or other recognised sources. That would not mean treating every heavy shower as a disaster. It would mean making sure the trigger is usable by the people the support is meant to reach.

Continuity planning support matters too. Before this happened, I had thought about rain, but I had not written down who would help move equipment, where records would be stored, what I should photograph, or how I would keep working if the room could not be used. A simple checklist, a place to keep documents and practical advice before the storm would have saved time. The Kenya Meteorological Department’s forecasts are useful; the missing piece for me was turning a forecast into a plan I could actually follow.

The Reopen Map can help show what recovery looks like beyond the first report of flooding. I would contribute the dates, time lost and costs I can document, without naming my business. One person’s account cannot establish a pattern. Taken with other accounts, it can help the Council see whether claim delays, short-term cash gaps and the lack of continuity support recur across places and types of business.

UNDRR has reported that small and medium-sized enterprises bear about 75 per cent of business disaster losses.¹ That figure is large, but the part I know personally is smaller and exact: KSh 162,000 in costs I could document, savings used up, a family loan to repay, and months without a final claims decision.

I support the Reopen Standard because recovery should not depend on how long an owner can afford to wait.

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