When dealing with major flooding events, claims management must go beyond traditional loss adjustment towards evidence-based remediation, operational continuity and long-term resilience.
The response to flooding at AFC Wimbledon’s stadium in September 2024 illustrates how this approach can reduce disruption, control costs and support more sustainable recovery following a major property loss.
A major flooding event
In September 2024, AFC Wimbledon’s stadium experienced major flooding due to extreme local rainfall in South London. The heavy rain overwhelmed a below-pitch tank, causing water ingress that affected the playing surface, drainage, and operational areas. This created a complex and operationally sensitive loss scenario needing urgent specialist intervention, strategic oversight, and coordinated recovery.
The response was led collaboratively by McLarens and QBE. From first notification, major loss specialists attended the site to provide technical leadership and strategic direction. Initial priorities focused on ensuring safety, managing contamination risks, stabilising the affected areas, protecting key stadium operations and maintaining business continuity while developing a long-term recovery strategy.
The scale and sensitivity of the incident required close coordination between insurer, adjuster, contractors, broker, and the insured throughout the recovery lifecycle.
An evidence-based approach to remediation
One of the defining features of the recovery was the adoption of an evidence-led remediation strategy.
Conventional flood recovery would typically have involved widespread removal and replacement of hygroscopic materials, including extensive plasterboard strip-out. Instead, remediation decisions were informed by comprehensive moisture mapping, quantitative air and surface sampling, detailed contamination risk assessments and comparative benchmarking against another operational football stadium.
This approach enabled the recovery team to distinguish between materials that genuinely required replacement and those that could safely be retained following decontamination and drying.
A bespoke remediation and sanitisation programme was subsequently implemented, allowing the majority of plasterboard installations to remain in place while still achieving robust health and safety outcomes. Independent environmental testing later confirmed the effectiveness of the approach and validated the safe return of players, staff and visitors.
Maintaining operational continuity
Early stabilisation drying measures, followed by advanced drying techniques, ensured affected materials were restored to pre-loss moisture conditions without unnecessary demolition or disruption to ongoing stadium activities. Importantly, the recovery programme enabled continued use of retail, office, and training facilities during the remediation process. Despite the scale of the incident, only one home fixture was postponed, demonstrating the effectiveness of the operational continuity strategy.
Cost control was achieved through proportionate, technically justified intervention rather than blanket replacement. By using scientific testing and verified risk assessments to guide remediation decisions, unnecessary strip-out and reinstatement costs were avoided without compromising safety or quality. This enabled elements of the claim spend to be redirected toward resilience improvements designed to help reduce the risk and severity of future flood events.
Sustainability as part of the recovery
The project also demonstrated the growing importance of sustainability within major loss management.
By preserving approximately 2,460m² of plasterboard and avoiding extensive finishing works, the recovery achieved an estimated reduction of more than 13,000kg CO²e in embodied carbon emissions.
Alongside reducing demolition waste and retaining safe existing materials, the approach avoided unnecessary replacement works while supporting the long-term resilience of the stadium.
Rather than being treated as a secondary consideration, carbon reduction formed a measurable performance metric within the recovery strategy, reflecting the increasing emphasis insurers are placing on environmental outcomes alongside traditional claims objectives.
Coordinating the recovery
Another key factor in the success of the recovery was the retention of strategic control by the major loss team throughout the lifecycle of the claim.
Rather than operating purely as claims administrators, the team actively coordinated the technical investigations, mitigation activities, contractor engagement, recovery governance and stakeholder communications from first notification through to completion.
Transparent communication also proved critical during the event, particularly given wider contractor capacity pressures following severe weather activity. Early and honest engagement regarding resource availability enabled informed appointment decisions and reduced the likelihood of delays that frequently exacerbate major losses.
Looking ahead
By combining technical expertise, evidence-based remediation, operational continuity and sustainability objectives, the project delivered reduced disruption, controlled remediation costs, improved environmental outcomes and enhanced long-term resilience, while enabling the safe and efficient recovery of an important community asset.
As climate-related property losses become more frequent, successful major loss handling will increasingly be measured not simply by how quickly buildings are reinstated, but by how effectively insurers, adjusters and policyholders work together to minimise disruption, improve resilience and deliver lasting value beyond the immediate claim.
