In thinking that if you live in a house that regularly floods that it is reasonable that insurers either won't offer flood cover or have an extremely high excess?

[pingu2209]

I feel pitty for the people who have been flooded. It must be a terrible experience and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

However, insurance is meant for unforeseen events.

If you live in a house that has flooded before, especially if it has happened more than once, then a flood is no longer an unforeseen event. It is a question of when, rather than if.

It is logical business to not offer life cover for someone who has terminal cancer. It is logical business not to not pay out for theft if someone has left their windows and doors open. Why isn't it logical business for insurers to refuse flood cover for houses who are located in areas that flood?

I feel the insurers are being made out to be the big baddies, but am I being unreasonable to totally see where the insurers are coming from?

Houses in these ere parts that flood have clad the insides with swimming pool tiles and hoists on the ceiling for heavy furniture.......flooding is pretty common in certain areas sadly and they just take it on the chin.

I have nothing but sympathy for people being flooded out for the first time and think insurance should pay out and cover adaptations so if it happens again it's not such a disaster.

Pingu, YANBU. I think insurance companies should give flood insurance, but it is acceptable that the premiums are high or that the excess is large. Insurance companies are companies, not public services.

While I understand this is a sensitive topic for many at the moment, it is also a current one, and we can't stop talking about everything on MN because someone somewhere is suffering because of that thing. If we did, we would never be able to discuss anything and MN wouldn't even be able to have a forum. There are plenty of subjects that affect plenty of people negatively, we can't ban them all. However, people are free to use the very handy 'hide' function, as I do when there is a thread about something that is likely to upset me.

The problem is that once your house has flooded, it loses value. Who'd buy a house with a sky-high excess? If you didn't see it coming, that's hard to deal with. So if it just meant a slightly higher insurance premium for all, but house values didn't fall out the bottom? No-one can say for sure they won't be flooded and they wouldn't benefit at some point in their life. Unless they live at the top of a hill I suppose.

Quite simplistic really - how do you propose all the houses built on flood plains are demolished and where you rehouse the several million people living in such areas across the UK?

Lets take the old town of Tewkesbury as an example.

Where are you going to rebuild and relocate them to?

Well said Outraged. I know it is sensitive at the moment but this thread is not about berrating any flood victims. It is about discussing the highly topical subject of how flood damage is financed; insurance or government?

The fact that there are so many houses that have stood for 10s of years and never flooded shows that this issue is not an insurance one, but to do with how the Government are going to tackle increased risk of flooding - whether it is to do with building on flood plains, blocked streams, blocked drains, too many paved front gardens or just too much bloody rain.

All the while the Government refuse to tackle these factors hard, the risk of flooding increases, not only to houses that flood regularly but also those that have never flooded before. If it can happen once, it can happen again, that is until something is done to tackle the reasons for the flooding.

All households that have never flooded before should have flood cover at basic rates. If the house floods for the first time the claim should be covered in full and dealt with as quickly as practical to ease any burden.

However, what is an insurer supposed to do in the future? They know that the chance of flooding for a second time is dramatically increased - that is unless something is done to stop the reason for the flood. As the Government won't do anything to stop those reasons for the flood, the risk of flooding is not reduced, how should the financial impact of flooding of those houses be covered?

Is it the insurers job? I don't think so. The insurers job is to write the risk - so the underwriters write the flood risk at dramatically increased rates - because the risk of flooding has dramatically increased. If the risk of flooding is 100% certain, then the chance of getting cover is 0%.

What should those householders do?

Well, what should happen is very different from what is likely to happen, but in my opinion, the government shouldn't have to pay for flood damage to private property. But they should, through the councils, be responsible for doing everything physically possible to prevent flooding in the first place. Then it's up to the insurance companies to charge whatever they have to charge to insure those properties that are at risk.

I feel we pay enough in tax, and I, as a person the lives at the top of a hill, don't want to have to pay any more on either tax or insurance to sort out other people's flood damage. I'd have thought that people who rent their homes don't want to have to pay more to cover other people's properties either.

I don't know what those householders at risk should do, but I do think that home owning is a risk that we take, and we have to be responsible for our own properties. The government should step in if water companies or councils don't maintain drains or streams properly and make them pay where it can be proved that they haven't carried out works that they should have done that would have prevented private properties flooding. But I think this can only apply to buildings insurance, contents has to be entirely the responsibility of the the person that owns it, whether there are renting or are owners.

When you buy a house do the surveys look at flooding risk?

Insurers are businesses, same as banks. But I do feel there needs to be some sort of government scheme, it's people's lives. They can't sell a property as its in a flood area and they can't insure it, so what can they do?
Also flood prevention needs more funding again from the government, we need to stop building on flood plains without properly protecting the properties and the subsequent run off grounds.

They can't do anything, but if they end up homeless because their property is uninhabitable, then they should be entitled to a council home in the same area.

When you buy a house do the surveys look at flooding risk?

Yes and a lot more, but then I get paid to think about these things,

I have knowing built houses in areas that I suspect or knew will flood, but I also designed then so it would not matter when it did, the right design for the right space, build on flood plains, brilliant use of the land, but build on stilts/piles it's very simple.

Listen to this before goes, very good advice about insurance and flooding, and explanation that most flooding is not from overflowing rivers.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0080g47

As a former resident of Tewkesbury-on-Sea and whose place of employment in Cheltenham was flooded during the 2007 floods, I think I can speak on this one....

Our house was built on floodplain. We didn't flood. While Tewkesbury was a major focus, it should be pointed out that parts of it flood regularly in the winter - without necessarily affecting houses. Large parts of the town were completely unscathed by the floods. We had no problem selling our houses two years later, nor did our insurance premiums go up.

My workplace was flooded at the same time. Major damage. Our insurance went up a lot and no new insurer would touch us, even though we had installed flood doors that - as long as we expect severe weather or receive a warning (which we sign up for) - will prevent any repeat unless the water is at least 4ft high (at which point the whole town will be buggered). Following year a new insurerer took us on at a premium lower than pre-flood levels.

If you buy a property that has flooded twice in, say, the last 20 years, then you are asking for trouble and unless you have gone to efforts to minimise the issue - by installing flood doors - I don't think it is unreasonable for you to be paying significantly increased premiums.

The issue here is two fold - one, that any housebuilder building on floodplains should either a) build on stilts or, more reasonably, b) include flood doors as standard; two, that councils need to ensure river courses are properly dredged regularly.

Something much more insidious is going on with insurers and renewals.
I live in a house which has NOT been flooded; there has been no flooding in the vicinity; to local knowledge not even roads have flooded since 1947; the area has massive investment in flood defences; we've had defences & drainage for centuries; all local area pay levies to Internal Drainage Boards; we have sluices, diversion channels, drainage dykes, a massive network (The Lincolnshire Fens).
And yet - our insurance renewal this week has a rise of 10% and they are imposing a flood excess of £10k as 'they now see us as a flood risk area'. I repeat there has been no flooding locally, so this cannot be based on claims histories locally. They simply 'think' there is a risk.
We are complaining, so we won't know the outcome of that for some while. In the meantime, from other postings, news reports, and articles by estate agents & mortgage brokers, ANY flood excess attached to a property renders it likely to be a problem to sell, and may lead to tens of thousands of pounds in decreased property value as the asking price would have to be dramatically lowered to gain a sale, and even then any prospective purchaser may be declined a mortgage because of the flood risk excess attached, thereby losing us the sale. We were not planning to move, but if we try to stay, there's no telling what insurance will be like the following year - increasing the flood excess may decimate the house value. Even if we don't move ourselves and never get flooded, the lower house value harms our son, who will inherit less. We're only little people, there's not much else to leave but the house.
We haven't even been flooded, but look what damage to our life savings is being done to us by insurers.