ABSTRACT
Abstl'act The paper describes the background to, and impetus for production of the HAPM
Component Life Manual, which schedules "insured lives" for over 500 components used in housing. The Housing Association Property Mutual (HAPM) club of housing associations provides a unique 35 year insurance against latent defects in their public housing stock. Both structural and non-structural failures are insured, including premature deterioration of components. The insurance has been available since 1990, and over 60,000 housing units are currently registered for the insurance. The author is a member of the HAPM Technical Audit Unit (TAU), which produced
the HAPM Component Life Manual (CLM). Each component type is identified by a range of generic class descriptions, which are ranked in terms of durability. The schedules designate the "insured lives" for each generic benchmark specification using a series of codes. The paper describes the structure of the durability designations, and the
incorporation of inherent durability of materials, maintenance levels, exposure ratings, protective treatments, assumed installation standards and design criteria into the model. The refinement of the model as a consequence of improved data availability is covered, together with proposals for development of the data analysis, and potential extensions to the system. Keywords: Benchmarks, Components, Durability, Insurance, Technical audit, Service Lives.
