Insurers want to ensure that British homeowners are protected against flooding in the long run.
Floods are the greatest natural threat to UK homes, with two million houses in England and Wales said to be at flood risk from rivers or the sea and another 2.4 million at risk of surface water flooding, according to Environment Agency figures.
Flood risk complicates mortgage deals as well, as lenders usually insist on an insurance cover that often limits a future sale of the property only to cash buyers.
The new Flood Free Homes campaign was launched today by the Association of British Insurers. Campaign objectives are to secure £1 billion to be spent on flood risk management by 2025, to stop the building of new homes in high-flood risk areas and to achieve cross-party consensus on long-term solutions that manage all types of risk.
“With climate change pushing up flood risk, it’s vital that the government massively ramps up its investment in flood defences and stops building homes on floodplains. It’s not right that the human and economic costs of climate change are pushed onto those most vulnerable to flooding – we need to tackle this huge problem together,” Guy Shrubsole, a campaigner with environment organisation Friends of the Earth, said.
Other supporters of the Flood Free Homes campaign are Know Your Flood Risk, National Flood Forum, and the Property Care Association’s Flood Protection Group.
Huw Evans, deputy director general at the Association of British Insurers, commented:
“The need for this campaign to address the UK’s rising flood threat has never been more important. No action is not an option. Last winter’s floods highlighted the trauma and devastation flooding brings. How we manage our land and water has to become central to government decision making across the UK, whoever is in power.”
According to campaign data, the winter floods in 2012 resulted in 39,400 insurance claims costing £594 million and the cost for winter flood claims in 2013/14 summed up to £451 million with 18,700 submitted claims.
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