Flooding and Insurance

Flood risk in the UK

For many people, flooding is a fact of life. There are more than 2 million homes at risk from coastal or inland flooding (10 % of total homes in the UK), and around 400,000 homes at very high risk of flooding (greater than 1.3 % annual probability or 1-in-75 chance).

The UK is unique in offering flood cover as a standard feature of household and most business policies.  Unlike much of Europe and worldwide, cover is widely available to the UK’s 23.5 million householders. 

In the long term, this situation could worsen, unless we take action to reduce flood risk to people and property. Climate change will increase winter rainfall, the frequency of heavy rainfall, and sea levels and storm surge heights. With no change in Government policies or spending, climate change could increase the number of properties at risk of flooding to 3.5 million. Furthermore, continued pressure on land could mean even more new developments being situated in floodplains.

Flood insurance in the UK

By spreading risk across policy-holders, insurance enables householders and businesses to minimise the financial cost of damage from flooding. In the modern competitive insurance market, premiums reflect the risks that customers face. This enables insurance to be offered at very competitive prices to customers living in low flood risk areas.
After the widespread flooding in Autumn 2000, when around 10,000 properties were flooded and the costs to the insurance industry exceeded £1 billion, the ABI worked closely with the Government to agree terms through which the industry would continue to provide cover for the vast majority of households in the country. Further details can be found in the ABI report Renewing the Partnership.

In 2005, ABI published an assessment of progress on flood management on the fifth anniversary of the Autumn 2000 floods. See press notice for further details.



Flood defence spending

After decades of inadequate and stop-start investment, the Government announced new plans to raise spending on flood defences and flood risk management in its 2002 Spending Review. The ABI paper Turning back the tide the case for sustaining investment in flood management and defences looked ahead to the levels of spending on flood defences  needed up to 2010. We concluded that the £150 million per annum uplift planned for 2005/06 needed to be sustained, in real terms, as the minimum acceptable level of investment throughout this period. The ABI was pleased that the Government was able to commit to maintaining this level of investment for the next three years in its Spending Review announcement.  Although we have seen a real terms rise of 35 per cent from 1997 to 2005 on flood risk management spending, the investments remained almost flat since 2005, at a little over £570 million per year. But  improvements in flood risk modelling indicate that many more properties are at a high risk of flooding than was estimated in 2002 and climate change is expected to increase the risk significantly over the next decades. Therefore the ABI has asked Government to increase the spending on flood defecnces to £750million a year by 2011 in the current Comprehensive Spending Review.

A Future for the Floodplains

ABI presses for Government action on flood risk

ABI:Government has failed on flood defence spending

Development planning and flood risk
 
Avoiding building new developments in high flood risk areas is the most sustainable solution to managing flood risk in the long term.  The ABI welcomes the introduction of PPS25, as this has strengthened the integration of flood risk assessments in the planning system. We are monitoring the planning system closely in order to assess if PPS25 is an effective tool in limiting developments in high flood risk areas. For more information about ABI's proposals for a 'Planning policy fit for the future' please see Chapter 4 in our report  'Summer Floods 2007 - Learning the Lessons'.

The ABI is planning to publish guidance for developers on flood risk and insurance for new developments in Autumn 2008.

Sewage flooding

Flooding from sewers and urban drains is a serious problem for insurers. On average, there are over 7000 cases of sewer flooding every year.  In large conurbations it has been estimated that overloaded sewers typically account for some 50% of flooding problems, due in part to the age of the sewerage system in many cities, and in part to the relatively high housing density. Climate change now and in the future, exacerbates this problem, as greater winter rainfall and more frequent bouts of heavy rainfall can overload the capacity of the drainage system and lead to increased frequency and volume of flooding. As part of the Statement of Principles on continued provision of flood insurance to the majority of householders, the ABI requires Government to implement “realistic solutions to sewer flooding including increased investment in improvement programmes”.  If Ofwat does not approve water-company plans to tackle sewer flooding effectively, the Government may find it difficult to meet this condition. Ofwat has undertaken the periodic review of water company charges and investment needs for the period 2005-2010 including those addressing sewer flooding.

Resilient Repair

Individual property owners can do much to increase the resistance and resilience of their properties to flood damage - further information is available.ABI has issued a factsheet for property owners on a range of measures that could be taken by a homeowner to improve the resilience of their property to flood damage. In May 2007 the ABI and DEFRA jointly hosted a workshop on flood resilience