Brocade
TL;DR: Brocade's insurability surface derives two statuses for a building — one for lending, one for insurance — purely from the evidence you already hold, and names what is blocking each one. It is not a valuation, an insurance quote, or a substitute for an EWS1 form. It tells you which evidence you are missing, who owns it, and what the current status rests on.
Look up EWS1 and the other terms in our glossary →
The Problem: Nobody Can Answer the Broker's Question
A leaseholder's sale falls through because the buyer's lender asks for an EWS1 and nobody knows whether the building has one. A renewal quote arrives 40% higher and the broker asks whether the block has been accepted onto a funded remediation scheme. A new director asks why the Landlord's Certificate matters and gets three different answers.
The evidence usually exists. It is in a surveyor's PDF in someone's email, a scheme acceptance letter in a former chair's inbox, and a spreadsheet tab that has not been touched since the last managing agent left. What does not exist is a single answer to the question the lender and the insurer are both asking: what is on file, and what is missing?
What the Insurability Page Shows
Each building has an insurability page alongside its safety case. It opens with a line reminding you that the status reflects evidence held in Brocade only, and that you should verify current terms directly with your lender or insurer. Then two cards.
Lending shows one of seven states: Not yet assessed, Scope undetermined, Out of scope, Clear, Conditional, Blocked, or Remediated. Insurance shows its own seven: Not yet assessed, Scope undetermined, Out of scope, Normal, Loaded — mitigated, Loaded — unmitigated, or Remediated.
Each card carries a three-part provenance stamp, and no card renders without all three parts: the date the status was derived, the guidance edition it was judged under, and the specific document and date the evidence came from. A status you cannot trace is not shown.
A building with no external wall evidence renders as Not yet assessed, never as Blocked and never as Clear. Absence of evidence is a distinct state from adverse evidence.
Below the cards sit nine dimension rows in fixed order, each marked Satisfied, Blocking, Soft flag, or No evidence: external wall evidence, remediation funding path, BSA certificates, remediation state, FRA currency and actions, interim measures, systems evidence, insurance record and FSRF placement, and post-works warranties and completion documents.
Then the blockers. Each row names the dimension it belongs to, tags the owning party from a fixed list of seven (freeholder or landlord, RMC/RTM directors, managing agent, developer, assessor or competent person, broker, leaseholders), states the action in a sentence, and links to the page where that evidence is recorded. Blockers that determine the status are grouped above the soft factors that cannot move it. A building with none shows an empty state that says no blockers were recorded from held evidence — not that the building is clear.
Last comes the programme timeline: dated remediation milestones you add, edit and delete, each with a label, a target date or an explicit TBD, a status of Planned, In progress or Complete, and an overdue marker once a target date passes.
The Status Cannot Be Set by Hand
This is the part that matters for anyone who has been handed a rosy compliance report.
The status is a state machine, not a score. No dimension row or blocker carries a numeric field of any kind, so nothing downstream can average or total one into a status.
Three consequences follow. Setting a building's remediation state to complete without a completion certificate or a post-works FRAEW on file produces a blocker asking for completion evidence; the status does not move. An FSRF placement whose renewal date has passed demotes the insurance track to Loaded — unmitigated and raises a re-broker blocker. And promissory wording is blocked by an automated test that sweeps every string in the module, case-insensitively, for terms including mortgageable and guaranteed.
The guidance edition is handled the same way. RICS published the second edition of its secured lending standard for multi-storey residential buildings with cladding on 12 May 2026, effective 1 November 2026. Evidence assessed under the earlier edition keeps its status and earns a re-assessment-due flag — the status is never silently recalculated underneath you.
See the full Safety Case Report guide →
What It Deliberately Does Not Do
Compliance professionals check. So, plainly:
- No export or PDF of the insurability status yet.
- Blockers link, they do not track. No assignment, due dates, or notifications.
- One building at a time. There is no portfolio rollup across a managing agent's book.
- Nothing in the resident portal.
- Dimension 6, interim measures, has no source yet and always renders as no evidence recorded.
- Dimensions 5, 7 and 9 — FRA actions, systems checks and warranties — currently show only that records of that kind exist. They carry no citation and cannot move a status.
- No stored history. The status is derived live on every page load; nothing pins a past status for comparison.
Why This Sits Where Evidence Meets Cost
Insurance is where building safety stops being a filing exercise and starts appearing on the service charge. It is also about to become a disclosure obligation.
On 15 July 2026 MHCLG published its response to the consultation on strengthening leaseholder protections, confirming a standardised service charge demand form, an annual report on the building's condition and planned major works, and a right for leaseholders to request building information going back six years. Insurance is handled separately, through a single standardised document disclosing procurement and pricing, policy coverage, reinstatement costs, and any relationship between the landlord or managing agent and the broker or insurer.
These measures implement Part 4 of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which covers service charges and insurance at sections 53 to 60. Part 4 is not in force. The provisions did not commence at Royal Assent (Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, s.124(3)), statutory instruments are expected later this year, and private landlords get a 12-month notice period before the duties bite. Nothing here is a live obligation today.
What is live today is the gap between the evidence you hold and the evidence someone will ask you to produce. That is the gap the insurability page is built to show.
This article is for informational purposes. For building-specific advice on lending or insurance, consult a qualified fire safety professional and your broker.
Questions
How does Brocade decide a building's lending and insurance status? A pure rule engine reads the evidence already stored against the building and returns one of seven states per track. There is no score, no average, and no manual override — the engine is the only thing that can produce a status.
Can someone mark a building as remediated to clear the status? No. Setting the remediation state to complete without a completion certificate or a post-works FRAEW on file produces a blocker telling you to upload completion evidence. The status stays evidence-derived.
What happens when RICS updates its EWS1 guidance? The second edition of the RICS secured lending standard was published on 12 May 2026 and takes effect on 1 November 2026. Evidence assessed under the earlier edition keeps its status and gains a re-assessment-due flag rather than being silently recalculated.
Does the insurability page tell me my building is safe or mortgageable? No. Promissory wording is blocked by an automated test that sweeps the module's copy. Every status carries a line telling you to verify current terms directly with your lender or insurer.
Can I export the insurability status or assign the blockers to someone? Not yet. The surface is read-only: blockers link to the page where the missing evidence is recorded, but there is no assignment, due date, notification or export. Both are on the roadmap, not in the product.
Further Reading
- Building Safety Act costs: what building managers should budget for — where insurance sits in the wider compliance budget
- Cladding Safety Scheme funding for buildings under 11 metres — the funded-path evidence the lending track looks for
- Safety case evidence quality under section 88 — the same evidence discipline, applied to the safety case
- RICS secured lending valuation standard — the source for EWS1 request criteria
- Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, Part 4 — service charge and insurance provisions, not yet in force