Support clients’ predictive maintenance goals with condition monitoring

A worn bearing. Abnormal heating in a switchgear. A slow liquid leak. A transformer fault developing out of sight. Many equipment failures are preceded by changes that are hard to detect through periodic observation alone. When these go unnoticed, the result can be equipment damage, unplanned downtime, and disruption extending beyond the affected asset.

For manufacturing, energy, and tech sector clients, the consequences may extend well beyond the damaged asset. An unplanned shutdown can interrupt production or services, delay delivery, increase costs, and affect customer commitments, even when the direct physical damage is comparatively limited.

This creates a practical opportunity for brokers. Including condition monitoring in broader risk management discussions can help your clients consider opportunities to identify developing conditions, reduce avoidable disruption, and strengthen resilience. In turn, this will help you to deepen relationships through helping clients maintain clearer loss histories and demonstrating a proactive approach to risk management.

How condition monitoring enables resilience

As an independent third-party testing and certification organization, FM Approvals’ mission is to evaluate products against established approval requirements and provide confidence in their reliability and suitability. FM Approved condition monitoring solutions are one part of our broader approach to property loss prevention and operational resilience.

Condition monitoring is the process of collecting and evaluating information about the condition of equipment, systems, or environments. Depending on the application, monitored parameters may include temperature, vibration, humidity, sound, gases, electrical characteristics, or the presence of liquid leakage.

Rather than relying solely on inspections, clients may use continuous or regularly collected data to identify trends and investigate changes as they develop. When supported by appropriate alarm criteria, trending, technical review, and response procedures, engineering teams can diagnose problems, prioritize risks, order parts, schedule planned shutdowns, and carry out repairs before deterioration becomes business interruption.

For example, monitoring may identify abnormal heat in a switchgear, gas build-up in transformer oil, vibration in motors or gearboxes, acoustic signals from wind-turbine blades, RF energy or partial discharge in electrical equipment, humidity changes, or escaped liquid leaks.

This helps clients to move from reacting under pressure to making better-informed maintenance decisions. For brokers, that shift shows that your clients are serious about loss prevention and empowers you to have more constructive coverage conversations with our team.

Which clients can benefit the most

Condition monitoring extends FM’s loss prevention philosophy beyond just preventing loss events. It is about reducing day-to-day interruption risks that can erode productivity and resilience. The goal is to help clients with critical equipment or long lead-time assets protect operational continuity.

Manufacturing facilities are a clear place to begin. In an interconnected production process, deterioration of a single critical asset may interrupt wider operations. Monitoring electrical equipment can identify abnormality indicators, such as thermal discharge. Liquid leak detection systems may also provide earlier notification and initiate actions that help limit the affected area.

In the energy sector, critical assets such as turbines or transformers can be expensive, complex, and slow to repair or replace. Dissolved gas analysis systems can monitor selected gases in transformer insulating liquid that are associated with developing thermal or electrical conditions. This information can support further evaluation and maintenance or replacement planning before failures occur.

Data centres can also be relevant, particularly where uptime depends on reliable power infrastructure, backup generation, switchgears, and leak protection for liquid cooling systems.

Building a business case for condition monitoring

Condition monitoring solutions range from relatively straightforward wireless sensors to integrated systems that require detailed engineering and planned installation. The right approach depends on the asset, failure modes, operating environment, communications needs, and actions expected when abnormal conditions are detected.

FM Approved products have been independently evaluated against applicable requirements. Brokers and clients can use the FM Approval Guide to identify products within relevant approval categories and then work with qualified personnel to determine their suitability for a particular application.

For critical assets, hard-to-replace equipment, or failure modes that provide a detectable warning period, condition monitoring may offer a compelling business case. Clients should consider installation and lifecycle costs alongside the potential consequences of an unplanned outage. When properly selected, interpreted, and incorporated into defined response procedures, condition monitoring information can support earlier action, better planning, and stronger continuity.

If you have a client who could benefit from a condition monitoring solution, we would love to hear from you. Submit a new business enquiry here and we’ll be in touch ASAP.

This is part of a series of articles FM is producing to help brokers understand the value we can provide to their commercial property insurance clients. Look out for the next post in this series for more valuable insights.