Lifting the threat of terror

The increased terrorist activity in Europe over the last few months has shown that people in large conurbations are still targets for the most serious forms of modern atrocity the continent faces – suicide attacks and those involving fire arms and explosives. It is no surprise then that the scale of security measures and the costs of protecting large city buildings, and not only strategic ones or those in strategic locations, have been on the rise. Apart from those facilities that have traditionally been involved in anti-terrorist activities, such as airports, stations, shopping centres and hotels, it is now the tenants, owners and managers of office buildings who are starting to pay closer attention to security issues. Office buildings, which are integral to city centres, are now often directly connected to the public transport system, with underground stations and railway stations usually located nearby, The buildings are themselves also becoming increasingly opened-up – to the city, to outsiders, and to new types of tenants: state institutions and international organisations.

The economic costs related to the phenomenon of terrorism, including those paid by private businesses, are substantial. According to the Global Terrorism Index 2015 report published at the end of last year, in 2014 the expenditure incurred by the global market in connection with terrorist attacks reached almost USD 53 bln, i.e. 61 pct more than a year earlier and as much as ten times higher than in 2000. This is not only the result of higher expenditure on security measures, but also the insurance costs and the expenditure incurred in order to cover damages suffered. But how realistic is it to avoid getting caught in the trap of an anti-terrorist fixation while ensuring adequate security at the same time?

A matter of time and willingness

The fact that attacks are increasingly often being carried out by difficult to identify sleeper cells or lone wolves does not make prevention any easier in the globalised world. “If someone wants to attack the so-called 'soft targets', it’s only a matter of time before they do so, because it is they who choose the time, place and method. And sometimes they are able to spend a few weeks or months on preparations,” admits Lt Col Andrzej Kruczyński, a former Polish special forces officer (the GROM counter-terrorism unit) and these days an advisor at the Social Security Institute. However, not everyone is convinced by that. “In Poland there is still the conviction that everything is fine as long as nothing serious happens. However, if something does eventually happen, it reveals the shortcomings of the entire system. Cities have their own problems. It is wrong to expect from local authorities to take on all the problems related to security. Each person should remain vigilant and react to suspicious behaviour. Securing buildings should be the responsibility of the owners, managers and tenants of these facilities,” he says and goes on to add that he has noted an increased interest in the topic over the last dozen or so months. So far office owners, managers and tenants are interested in specialist training sessions for employees, among other precautions. “Society should be sensitive to certain things and aware of what to do, how to react to strange situations, alarming events and they could even predict certain things. The monitoring of outsiders is often of key importance in the prevention and minimising of the results of terrorist attacks,” claims Lt Col Andrzej Kruczyński, who conducts specialist training sessions for companies. “The things which we talk about are presented bluntly as a ‘Guidebook Written with Blood’. Such a training session should take place at least once a year,” he adds. Companies and institutions are increasingly asking not only about specialist workshops for their employees (the average cost of a several-hour theoretical and practical training session for a group of 30–40 people is PLN 4,000–5,000), including those who work in Poland and those who often go on business trips abroad, but also about professional assessments of the degree of security in the buildings they work in. Sometimes such audits are requested by the owners and are often recommended and supervised by the managers themselves.

Counter-terrorist focus

“We have at least one large building and a few smaller ones we have been auditing in terms of anti-terrorist security measures through specialist companies since the recent terrorist attacks in Europe. In order to gauge the potential threats, the possibilities for accessing the building are assessed. Such an audit is usually carried out at the opening of a building. For large buildings the cost of an audit is a fraction of the building’s operating costs and the risk resulting from not having one is huge,” claims Łukasz Mazurczak, the director of the office property management department at JLL Poland, which is in charge of such office projects as the Warsaw Spire and Gdański Business Centre office complexes as well as the Rondo 1 skyscraper in Warsaw. “If there are tenants and investors who are particularly concerned about their security or a given property because they are potentially more prone to attacks or they are directly involved in the fight against terrorism, we discuss such topics with them. There are aspects and locations that we sometimes advise specific tenants against due to the security issues,” he adds. One such ‘special supervision’ tenant is Frontex, which occupies app. 15,000 sqm in one of the three Warsaw Spire buildings at Plac Europejski, where, apart from the security service, there are also metal detector gates like those at the airports as well as baggage scanners.

However, assessing buildings in terms of security, including terrorist threats, is not just a one-off measure. It involves day-to-day work with the company responsible for the security of the building. “The security company should present a protection plan that should not only include information about the location of individual security employees, but should also assess the security of the building. Such an initial report can be updated later – with reference to changes in the services provided as well as the security of the building. Such situations take place when tenants are joined by new companies that we do not know or there are new services, such as a conference centre, which could potentially become a target,” explains Łukasz Mazurczak of JLL. According to his calculations, the cost of security for an office building currently constitutes 6–10 pct of its operating costs.

Some representatives of the sector, including the Polish Council of Shopping Centres, have been cooperating directly with the Internal Security Agency and protection personnel in terms of training sessions and the adequate anti-terrorist protection for commercial facilities. Joint exercises, guidebooks and the recommendations suggested by them are meant not only to help minimise the terrorist threat, but also demonstrate how to improve the security of facilities in other fields. This works both ways – sometimes solutions for other risks (thefts, burglaries and fires) that already exist in the building, can also be used to guard against terrorist attacks with a minimal amount of work and funding.

Couriers will not sneak through

According to security experts, one of the weakest aspects of Polish office buildings is the supervision and management of mail and courier deliveries. The problem has already been identified by some of the owners of newer, larger buildings. The Warsaw Spire will be equipped with a system for scanning all the packages delivered to the building in a specially arranged area: the unloading ramp. "This is not located outdoors but on the -2 level. The developer of the project came up with this system at a previous stage. As the manager of the building we are responsible for launching it. It will include a scanner with a belt that will help us check all the packages arriving at the building,” says Łukasz Mazurczak of JLL. The packages will be scanned by a specially appointed and trained person. When the package is checked, the system will send a notification to a given tenant/recipient informing them about the parcel waiting to be picked up. “In the buildings managed by JLL in London, regular suppliers have special passes while deliveries from new ones are announced in advance,” adds Łukasz Mazurczak. In Poland the company is also introducing new building access control systems, such as electronic guest books, which are becoming increasingly popular. These make it possible to send personalised invitations including QR codes via email or a text message to guests expected in the office at certain times on certain days. In this way they do not have to wait and register in the building’s lobby but go directly through gates equipped with QR code readers and head for the specific office for their appointment, while the building’s manager is given an insight into the traffic of people from outside the building.

What else should Polish buildings have in order to be able to say that they meet basic security standards? Video surveillance systems are one thing – and although it might seem that they are ubiquitous anyway, particularly in buildings equipped with BMS, they are not always suitably positioned and serviced, rendering them ineffective. This is not the only problem. “There is a lack of the notification systems needed, for example, to announce evacuations within a few seconds to all the people present in the building,” remarks Lt Col Kruczyński. “The security service in a large office building sometimes comprises only a few people. So how do you inform everyone in the facility about the evacuation? The role of sound systems in such situations is underestimated in buildings. Such announcements should not only be made in Polish but at least also in English. These are basic measures. If we can support this with mobile apps or video surveillance, it is worth doing it,” he says.

Smaller and larger screens in the lobbies, lifts and on each of the floors in office buildings are now often used for urgent announcements. Also, beacons, sophisticated sensors and mobile applications work well in large properties of different kinds, although they have yet to be used in Poland: in the case of an incident (identified by a gunshot sound, smoke or explosion detector), they immediately send notifications to the mobile phones of the users present in the building. And sometimes also recommendations on which way to safely leave the building or whether to stay in it.

Fortress open to all

A certain degree of mobilisation on this issue and greater awareness of it can now be seen among architects, engineers and planners. September 11th, 2001 changed the way buildings are perceived and designed – particularly skyscrapers and the development of large cities – forever. It was also when the fortification of city centres intensified, particularly in the United States and Western Europe,” remarks Polish architect Artur Jasiński in his book ‘Architecture in Times of Terrorism’. In his opinion, the issue of anti-terrorist prevention itself, including the technical protection of buildings, is a "difficult" and conflict-generating topic. It is not hard to see that the security-focused approach also contrasts with the increasing trend for opening up commercial buildings to their environment and using them for a greater variety of functions, which is also evident in Poland. Even though architects and designers are now having greater opportunities to display their skills in this field, taking into consideration the latest technological developments, it does not always attract investors’ attention. While it is more difficult to force doors and entrances to car parks, there are rooms you can barricade yourself in, more spacious evacuation routes, faster lifts, staircases with automatic de-smoking systems, nooks and crannies can be avoided in the design – in other words, there are more extra security measures available. However, both the price and the investor's assessment of whether and why it is needed in a given project usually end up discouraging such an approach when preparing a new project.

Fear sells… or it doesn’t

Nobody needs convincing that businesses like a calm environment. When it comes to terrorist threat assessment the key issue is its perception. Those countries and cities that have fallen victim to the bombers have a natural tendency to invest more funds and activity in the fight against and the prevention of terrorist acts. This stems from the simple belief that if something has happened once, it could happen again. Which is why, regardless of repeated terrorist alerts, investors from countries affected by terrorism pay much more attention to this risk, even when they want to spend money on the Central European market, which is generally considered to be safe compared to Western Europe. The degree of the terrorist threat regularly appears in market reports. It is not ignored by analysts, banks or insurers, as well as by new market players, and it is taken into account as much as the infrastructure of the city in question, its labour force, rents or crime rates. Each serious terrorism incident and increased risk in this respect could result in business or tourist ostracism, even if it is only short-lived. So putting the right security systems in place is very much in the developers’ interest. “A terrorist threat could increase during events of international importance, such as the planned NATO summit in Warsaw. However, we do not have to contend with a direct terrorist threat on an everyday basis, which is appreciated by the foreign investors who visit our country for business as well as tourism,” explains Adrian Karczewicz, the CEE transaction director at Skanska Commercial Development Europe. “In the longer term this could have a positive impact on the activity of investors interested in office properties,” he adds. So far the Polish branch of Skanska’s view is that it is worth being prepared for each scenario and is also investing in extending its knowledge about potential terrorist threats – in April the company is to provide training to those employed in its Warsaw headquarters on how to react in the case of a terrorist attack on an office building, what to do if they become hostages and how to cooperate effectively with the security services in the event.

Brussels had learned a painful lesson about ignoring terrorist threats and expert analyses and under-estimating terrorists’ unpredictability. Following the attacks in Paris, the city invested in a PR campaign addressed, among others, to tourists, which was well received around the world. It was aimed at removing the perception of Brussles as a city under siege from terrorism and convincing people that the media exaggerates the problem.

Izabela Król

risk assessment manager, property insurance department, AIG in Poland

Better safe than sorry. But how to secure yourself?

AIG was the first insurance company to offer terrorist attack policies as a standalone product in Poland. We had been seeing an interest in terrorist policies for some time and receiving many enquiries from shopping centres, international hotel chains, airports, banks, sports facilities, companies in the power and petrochemical sectors, and government and local government administration units. Shopping centres and airports are usually the parties who are the most interested in such policies. However, the prices of terrorist policies are now much lower than a few years ago, which is why the spectrum of interest among the above-mentioned brands is much broader and much more uniform. While the Western banks that finance development projects usually require separate terrorist policies, it is often the clients themselves that apply for such protection, particularly when the properties they own or manage are located near airports, stations and busy places in the capital city, or if the companies are connected with the international environment or represent the strategic industries of the country.

The specific conditions forming the basis of the insurance policy are not actually the most important thing when it comes to risk assessment. It is the limit of the protection that counts most. AIG has a great deal of leeway when it comes to the limit of the insurance offered, the capacity of which currently goes up to EUR 250 mln. This is sufficient in 95 pct of all cases. In the case of limits exceeding our capacities, we complement our own insurance capacity by cooperating with our office and partners on the London market. The possibilities are practically unlimited then. A standard terrorist policy includes insurance against loss or physical damage resulting from an act of terrorism (standard T3/T3A). The protection may concern assets as well as the lost profit. It is worth remembering that not each kind of terrorism can be insured as part of a terrorist policy. One of the basic exclusions is NBC – Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) terrorism, i.e. losses caused by a nuclear reaction (e.g. explosion), or biological or chemical emission. AIG in Poland offers a separate cyber risk policy, called CyberEdge.

Terrorist risk insurance based on a ‘terrorist clause’ is very popular in Poland as an addition to a property policy. This option is offered by the majority of commercial company insurers. However, such protection is only offered in the range of a few hundred to a few million złoty for any and all incidents. In my opinion, this only works for retail chains or small services (restaurants, shops, etc) and actually protects their assets against terrorism. In other cases, it is an ‘empty policy’. For example, a limit of PLN 2 mln virtually equals no protection against terrorism for a company whose assets exceed PLN 200 mln at its largest location. Because this risk has a zero-one character: either nothing will happen or there will be substantial material damage if it does happen.