Home owners fear higher insurance bills due to flooding
Home-owners in Hammersmith and Fulham are dreading sky-high home insurance bills as the Environment Agency introduces new maps which take into account flooding by heavy rainfall.
Thousands of homes in some of Britain’s most expensive areas will be designated as facing a high risk of flooding for the first time from August. This could lead to a sharp increase in insurance costs and even a fall in property values.
At present maps produced by the Environment Agency only factor in coastal and river floods and show 517,000 homes at high risk.
New maps will take into account flooding by heavy rainfall, and could increase the number of homes at risk to 1million.
Around two-thirds of the damage caused by last summer’s deluge, which left 13 dead and 44,600 homes flooded, resulted from surface water unable to drain away.
High risk areas could include the London boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea as well as parts of Manchester and Reading.
Research by Landmark, a company which records environmental and property risk, has carried out research which shows many affluent London neighbourhoods affected by inadequate drainage.
It classifies areas with more than five flood claims per 1,000 residents as high risk. These include the London postcodes W11 to W14 — between Shepherd's Bush and Notting Hill— and RG2 8, southwest of Reading between Whitley and the M4.
At present, homeowners living in high-risk areas are given some measure of protection under a 2002 agreement between the insurers’ trade body, the Association of British Insurers (ABI), and the government. Homeowners can normally rely on cover if they stay with their existing insurer, but they face inflated premiums and high excesses — sometimes as much as £10,000.
July 10, 2008
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