Emaar to recover Dh1.22b for NYE Dubai hotel fire insurance claim

Emaar Properties said on Monday it would recover Dh1.22 billion from an insurance claim for the Address Downtown hotel blaze on New Year's Eve 2015.
In a filing to the Dubai Financial Market, Emaar, Dubai's largest-listed developer, said that it has agreed with Orient Insurance to recover the claim related to the December 31, 2015 blaze at the 63-storey hotel tower near the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower.
The insurance claim will result in a write back of the Dh301 million provision created in 2015 to cover the incident. The write back will be recorded as income in the quarter ending December 1, 2016. Emaar said on January 3, 2016 the fire should have "no material impact" on the company because the building and risk of fire were covered by its insurance.
Dubai police have blamed faulty wiring for the cause of the fire that was fuelled by facade cladding.
Following the blaze, authorities ordered checks on every building, amid suggestions that the aluminium composite panels that clad hundreds of towers are a fire risk. Alubond, the company that supplied the facade cladding of the Dubai hotel, had scrapped the manufacture of plastic-filled panels following the incident.
The 2017 version of the UAE Fire Safety and Life Protection Code has made it compulsory for old buildings to replace existing claddings when they undertake maintenance work.
The new code, released at Intersec 2017, was initially planned to be issued last year, but is understood to have been delayed to include a second revision after The Address Downtown fire.
- issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com