Preventing multimillion-dollar mine disruptions: FM Global risk lessons for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on Australian Mining
30 Second Briefing
FM Global is urging Australian mines to tackle “invisible” operational risks by using detailed loss-prevention engineering to identify exposures before they trigger multimillion-dollar disruptions to production and cash flow. The insurer works directly on sites to trace root causes of unplanned shutdowns – such as conveyor fires, crusher failures or power-system faults – and then specifies targeted controls, from upgraded fire protection and redundancy in critical drives to improved maintenance regimes. For geotechnical and processing teams, the message is to integrate insurer-grade risk audits into design, expansion and brownfield upgrade decisions, not just post-incident reviews.
Technical Brief
- Similar insurer-led engineering reviews are increasingly being written into financing and offtake conditions for new mines.
Our Take
For an Australia‑based operator like FM, aligning disruption‑prevention strategies with the tax and policy debates highlighted in recent Australian Mining pieces on junior explorers can help ensure that safety and reliability initiatives are structured to capture available incentives and avoid future compliance shocks.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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