MP proposes central fund to insure churches against fire

The Church Commissioners should establish a central insurance fund to compensate for church fires, an MP has said.

Michael Fabricant, Conservative MP for Lichfield, asked whether such an idea had been considered during a parliamentary discussion of the increase in church fires at the end of last year.

He said: “For specialised properties, bodies such as the National Farmers Union have created their own insurance companies. Have the Church Commissioners given any thought, given the nature of churches, to the idea that there should perhaps be a central insurance company to insure more effectively against the risk of fire?”

Labour MP, and Second Church Estates Commissioner, Sir Stuart Bell, replied: “Advice on managing the risk of fire is available from Church House, from dioceses and from the Ecclesiastical insurance group, which insures most Church of England churches.”

Bell declined to provide figures on the overall cost of repairing fire-damaged churches, saying: “This is a matter for individual churches and cathedrals, and the figures are not held centrally. I know, however, that many churches and cathedrals have undertaken work on fire prevention, detection and containment.”