The storm passes, the drives are dead, the line is down, and a claim goes in. Weeks later an assessor asks a deceptively simple question: can you show that the protection that should have prevented this was actually in place and functioning when it happened? How well you answer that question often matters more than the size of the loss.
The question an assessor actually asks
A lightning or surge claim is not settled on sympathy. An assessor works backwards from the damage to the cause, and then to a second question that decides the outcome: was the protection the policy assumed — surge protective devices, earthing, bonding, a lightning protection system — present, correctly specified, and working at the time of the event? If the answer is a confident, evidenced yes, the claim is straightforward. If it is “it was signed off last year,” a gap opens, and the assessor is entitled to probe it.
Why surge and lightning cover is under pressure
This matters more now than it did a few years ago. South African insurers have publicly reported steep increases in power-surge claims over recent years, widely linked to grid instability and the repeated switching that load-shedding brings. The market has responded the way markets do: adding explicit surge-protection requirements as policy conditions, raising excesses on this class of loss, and in some cases excluding grid-failure damage altogether.
The practical effect for a site owner is that surge cover is increasingly conditional. Where a policy requires protection to be in place and maintained, the burden of showing that quietly shifts onto the insured — and “quietly” is the dangerous word, because most operators only discover the condition when they try to claim against it.
What your certificate can — and cannot — prove
A compliance certificate is genuine, useful evidence. It shows that, when it was issued, your earthing and bonding met SANS 10142-1, your lightning protection met SANS 10313, and your surge protective devices were coordinated per the SANS 61643 and IEC/SANS 62305 families. What it cannot do is speak for the months between its issue and the event. Between those dates a conductor can be stolen, an SPD can quietly reach the end of its life, a bond can corrode — and none of that shows up on a document dated eleven months ago.
So a certificate answers “was this system compliant when tested?” The claim turns on “was it protected when struck?” Those are different questions, and the distance between them is exactly the ground a dispute is fought on.
The evidentiary power of a time-stamped record
This is what continuous monitoring changes. When earth resistance, continuity and surge-device status are logged around the clock, you are no longer reconstructing the state of your protection from memory and an old certificate — you have a dated record of it, including in the hours and days around the event. That record does several things at once for a claim:
- It shows the required protection was present and functioning up to the moment of loss, answering the assessor's real question directly.
- It provides an independent timeline — when the surge or strike occurred, and the state of the system immediately before and after.
- It demonstrates diligence and maintenance, evidencing that conditions requiring protection to be “maintained” were actually met.
- Where a fault did exist, it shows when it arose and that it was acted on, rather than leaving an unexplained silence for the assessor to interpret against you.
None of this guarantees a payout — cover depends on your policy and the facts. But it moves you from arguing a position to producing a record, and in a dispute that difference is decisive.
For insurers: a cleaner risk signal
The same data that helps an insured defend a claim helps an insurer price and manage the risk. Today, earthing and surge protection tend to be underwritten crudely — present or absent, certified or not. A site under continuous assurance offers something better: evidence that protection is not just installed but verified and maintained over time. We put this forward as a decision-support view for underwriters, not a promise of loss prevention — but the direction is clear: verifiable, maintained protection is a materially better risk than a signature on a date.
The bottom line
Insurance is, in the end, an argument about evidence. Lightning and surge losses are rising, cover is tightening, and the point of contention has moved from “were you compliant?” to “can you prove protection was working when it mattered?” A certificate opens that file. A continuous, time-stamped record is what closes the argument in your favour.
This article reflects our engineering and risk opinion, not legal or insurance advice. Policy terms and claim outcomes vary — always confirm cover and conditions with your broker or insurer.
“Was your protection working when the loss occurred?” is a question a signed certificate can only answer with a shrug. A time-stamped record answers it with a date and a value.