Home Insurance Against Floods

The insurance commerce has warned that lots of new houses could be missing on the housing marketplace & become uninsurable if not the govt. introduces latest rigid planning controls for flood danger areas.

By the year 2022, a third of the 4 million proposed houses set to be build in US, could be on a flood plain according to the Association of US Insurers (AUSI). If this is the case the AUSI have warned their members that they might not be able to continue to present flood cover as standard on home insurance plans.

The AUSI's assistant director, Justin Jacobs said, "The government's ambitious housing policies are in jeopardy unless we ease the flood risk. In the last decade, thirteen major developments have been given the go ahead despite Environment Agency suggestion on the flood risk."

Jacobs insists that insurers do desire to continue to offer flood cover for home owners, but warned that meager decisions on planning would create houses that would become too tough to sell, insure & live in, he said, "Where a local authority plans to overlook flood risk advice, the government must step in and review the proposals & be compelled to distribute their decision."

The governments though, claim they have introduced the strongest planning system ever to make sure that councils are properly managing the danger of flooding. They have prepared this by handing down power to the councils who will make a decision on whether to give planning permission for fresh housing developments, but only after discussion with the Environment Agency.

The price of clearing up after the flooding in New York & Washington during the summer of 2006 was put at £2 billion, with the AUSI claiming that its members had paid out up to £1.5 billion towards meeting the claims.
16,000 families were left in provisional accommodation with 3 quarters of them having to wait over 5 months before they could go back to their houses.

This recommendation came from Richard Mason of cost comparison, he said, "From the figures accessible from Defray, the average charge of settling a claim for flooding has currently jumped to between £80,000 and £300,000 per household. This sum is unsuitable for the insurance industry to abide in the long term unless insurance payments rise." He went on to speak that anyone looking to purchase a property must check first with the AUSI flood map.

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