£4k to insure a 3 bed flat. nightmare

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

My parents retired to a flat in 2008. The flat is by a river but wasn't considered to be in a flood area as it hadn't flooded in 100 years.

In 2012 it did flood. Total devastation, my elderly (by then widowed) mother was rescued by a fire boat with her cats in a carrier bag. Everything in her ground floor flat was destroyed, lots of memories etc.

It took 4 months to dry out, strip and rebuild the flat.

It has been nearly impossible to get insurance and this year they are quoting £50k. As a block of flats that works out at £4k each. This is double last year. With a £35k excess.

Because it is a block the freeholder legally has to get insurance (& to be fair my mum needs the insurance) and puts it onto the leaseholder management charge.

The management charge is therefore going from £1500 when she moved in to £7000.

Floodre which comes in soon is the government's much heralded scheme to ensure affordable insurance is possible for households at risk of flooding. But it doesn't cover blocks of flats which seems so bloody unfair. I can't think why not. It feels as though floodre is making it worse for those at risk but not covered as the premium is going up so much it seems they are subsidising the rest of the floodre scheme.
AIBU to think that flats should be covered if other households are?

And anyone have any ideas what we can do? Even walking away she is still liable for the management fee. We can let it out but the letting value wouldn't cover the costs.

Get yourself and your mum on local news. Make an issue if it. Contact mp about how a vulnerable elderly lady maybe ace bankruptcy.

Adele that's the plan. At least that way it will only cost us £50-100 a month.
But I'm lucky I can get a second mortgage and do that.
The basic principle is still so unfair that people are in this position.

Completely agree, its ridiculous

Rubble you are probably speaking sense but my mum is old and private and I couldn't do that to her. She's very proud and that's what upsets her so much, everything her and my dad worked for has been wiped out.

I shouldn't have to turn my mum into a daily mail sad face to get fairness should I?

And yes to trying to auction it ourselves. Or trying those we buy any house people.

You have to pay for bankruptcy, you be better either renting out in hope that the gov scheme is revised long term or auctioning. Btw is the insurance building only ir does it incl contents?

Building only. Contents is on top.

Those were the options I'd come up with too. Hard to know which is best. Feel like selling it to anyone who'll take it but we need as much for it as we can get in case my mum needs a care home at some stage.

It's terrible this happening at the end of my mums life when earning to cover it is out of the question and its £500 a month extra from her pension.
But those with mortgages and dependants are in an even worse position.

If she is on a low income, she can get full or partial service charges paid for through pension credit. Insurance should be an eligible charge for housing costs. She should apply for that & send over the service charge document

Would it be possible to exclude flooding from insurance cover and instead invest the premium money in flood fitting the flats. It may only amount to five years of premiums to lessen the chances of flooding and limit the damage flooding will do if it happens.

she seems pretty screwed

sorry to hear that but i doubt theres much you can do

The freehold contract and the terms of people's mortgages requires comprehensive insurance so they cant really pool the money, plus if there is a flood in the meantime the bill would be around £150k based on last time for the flats affected. No one could cover that.

If the government could just accept people in flats need affordable flood cover just as much as people in houses then the premium would return to something like normal. Thanks for listening to my venting, i'm trying to sound positive for my mum but it's so gutting.

if there is a flood in the meantime the bill would be around £150k based on last time for the flats affected

That's why they're doubling the premium. Not because they want to leave the flats without cover, but because the risk will be assessed to be likely to happen again, possibly more severely. So they will still be covering some of the liability not covered by the premium. (Still a painfully huge excess though.)

Terribly bad luck for your mum, sorry

I had no idea FloodRe didn't cover flats. That's ludicrous, have you written to your MP?

We've tried MPs, David Cameron etc. there was a question raised in parliament about it and the government recognises it's a miss but haven't acted to change it.

There are about 70,000 leasehold flats in flood risk areas being hit by this.

Flood Re caps the premium at £500. In fact for my mum's council tax band it would be £260. So a riverside mansion can only be charged £500, even if it's flooded 5 times and cost £500k to repair but my mum's flat can be charged anything the insurer fancies. Which this year is £4,000.

What about increasing the excess considerably.

The excess is £35k (across the flats) or 25% of the claim, whichever is higher. To be honest I have no idea how they would pay this in event of a flood. I suppose the freeholder would pay and then try to ramp up the management fee by an extra £3k per flat.

It would be the freeholder who would need to agree I suppose. I'll ask.

The letting value would almost cover the costs as she owns the flat outright.

I'd keep the flat and let it out til it's resolved - even if it's a few years it will be resolved. And your asset will then be worth something.

I think you are right Laurie but I thought that in 2015 when the insurance was £26k. Now it's £50k in 2016. Who knows where it will get to.

Have you contacted the [[
www.nationalfloodforum.org.uk National Flood Forum]] OP?

Yes, thanks Bikerunski. They put me on to the specialist brokers and are coordinating the lobbying

Have there been any preventative measures put in place since the flood? Either at the property (raised floors, waterproof barriers, etc) or on an larger scale (ie. to contain the waterway)?

Sorry if this question's been asked. If it has, I missed it.

The flats were refurbished with some flood protection measures, but it's a listed building so I think options were limited. The environment agency won't take precautions as the number of houses impacted is only 4 which doesn't add up for them. Maybe another consultation about what else they could do is worthwhile.

Ok, I see.

This link may or not be of interest, 3.2 in particular. It sounds like you've probably already done plenty of research, though.

content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/flooding-and-historic-buildings-2ednrev/heag017-flooding-and-historic-buildings.pdf/

FWIW, I'm a broker (for my sins!), and we have hundreds of management companies on the books. Feel free to PM me if you'd like me to get someone to have a look at the risk. Hope I'm not breaking any rules by saying that .