‘My home is a flood risk — no insurer would touch me’

Severe weather warnings have been issued in the UK, with some areas expected to get a month’s rainfall in just a few hours. Experts say that more and more people are struggling to insure their homes against flooding.

“Insurers’ appetite is just contracting all the time,” said Liz Mitchell from the specialist insurance broker Flood Assist. “We’re not able to broker insurance for properties we used to be able to help, because insurers are just withdrawing left, right and centre.”

The reason for this, Mitchell said, was climate change, which is bringing wetter winters and more severe, frequent and less predictable flooding — and this is starting to hit insurers in the pocket. Firms paid out £117 million for flood claims affecting people’s homes in 2023, according to the Association for British Insurers (ABI), an industry body, up from £62 million in 2018.

Damage from flooding will typically be covered by a standard home insurance policy — you will normally need both building and contents cover for your home and possessions to be protected. The average cost of insuring a home that has flooded before was £451 in January, according to the consumer site Compare the Market, up 28 per cent from £352 the year before. That compares with an average cost of £247 for insuring a house that has never flooded.

“Home insurance premiums have gone up for a variety of reasons, including the rise in weather-related claims and the increasing cost of rebuilding homes,” said Louise Clark from the ABI. “More needs to be done to support communities to be resilient to storms and flooding. We need the government to further invest in flood defence and maintenance.”

But, as Bennett found out, some insurers are reluctant to make any offer at all to the riskiest properties. In January Storm Henk caused about £2,500-worth of damage to her home. The Thames burst its banks at Chertsey and swept into her garden, flooding her shed and the decking around her home. She said: “I can’t describe the shock I was in. The water was coming through and we started pumping it into the car park, but it was soon obvious that there was absolutely no point. It was awful.”

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What help is available?

Since 2016 insurers have been able to access a scheme called Flood Re, which was jointly set up by the government and the insurance industry to make sure households at risk from flooding can get affordable home insurance. Insurers collectively pay Flood Re a levy of £135 million a year to run a re-insurance scheme which pays out when customers’ homes flood. Firms pay Flood Re an additional fee for each home insurance policy they want to re-insure against flooding. This fee is based on the council tax band of the property, rather than its flood risk, which helps to keep costs down.

“I would advise customers to shop around. There is no reason for insurers to worry about the cost of insuring a flood-prone home if they can insure the flood element with us,” said Andy Bord, the chief executive of Flood Re.

Flood Re said it insured 265,000 policies last year, up from 127,326 in 2017. It said 32 per cent of the 7,500 claims it has received since 2016 were made in the last year. However, the scheme only covers homes built before 2009, to discourage the building of properties on floodplains. This means an insurer would not be able to use Flood Re if they agreed to offer home insurance to Bennett, whose home was built in March 2009 — three months too late to qualify.

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This could be a problem for people living in the 110,000 homes that have been built in areas of high flood risk in the past decade, according to the insurer Aviva. The Environment Agency estimates that the number of properties on floodplains could almost double in the next 50 years.

Between 2009 and 2020, about 20,000 homes were built in flood-prone areas without flood defences, according to the environmental think tank Bright Blue.

Some companies are reluctant to insure homes that are not covered by Flood Re. The insurer Ageas UK said it did not offer insurance to any properties in flood-prone areas built in 2009 or later. Firms including Axa, Admiral and Aviva said they would decide whether to insure homes on a case-by-case basis. “When we started brokering four or five years ago we were able to do a lot more for post-2008 homes than we can now,” Mitchell said.

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‘My premium went up 338 per cent’

Even people living in older homes are finding it difficult to get affordable insurance in flood-prone areas. In January Bryony Sadler got a letter from her insurer, Bradford and Bingley, to say the cost of insuring her home would increase from £800 to £3,500 a year — a rise of 338 per cent.

Sadler’s house in Somerset was built in 1892, which means it should be eligible for the Flood Re scheme. “They completely stuffed us. We have been loyal customers for ten years. We have only made one claim in 2014 because of flooding, but it’s not like I left a tap on and it was my fault,” Sadler said.

Sadler, 49, lives with her husband, Gavin, 45, their son, Toby, 16, daughter, Elsa, 13, and her mum, Julie, 80. About ten years ago their home was flooded following heavy rainfall and the family had to move out for nine months. The damage cost tens of thousands of pounds to repair and was covered by her insurer.

A spokesperson for Markerstudy, which administers Bradford and Bingley home insurance, said: “Mrs Sadler has been a valued customer for ten years and we appreciate her disappointment with the renewal premium price. Prices for home insurance are increasing because UK insurers are seeing a lot more claims due to an increase in the frequency and severity of weather events.”

A spokesperson for LV, which underwrites Sadler’s policy and therefore sets the price, said: “Having reviewed the property’s flood risk as well as taking into account the rise in home insurance over the last year, we’ve had to increase the premium. Flood Re only protects the flood risk of the policy and not other perils where the risk might also increase, such as subsidence.”

Flood Assist helped Sadler find a cheaper home insurance policy, which costs £1,200 a year.

What can you do?

The number of people at risk from flooding will only increase. The Climate Change Committee estimates that by the 2050s, even if serious efforts are made to reduce carbon emissions, 2.6 million people in the UK could be at significant risk of flooding, up from 1.8 million today. If carbon emissions are not drastically reduced the number would be 3.3 million.

That makes it all the more important that when you buy a property you understand whether it’s vulnerable and how you can reduce the risks. Information about any previous flooding should be included on a TA6 form, which sellers are obliged to fill in as part of the sale process.

If you are buying a new build, you can look up the planning application for the property through the Planning Portal and read its flood risk assessment. You can pay a specialist to carry out a flood risk survey of the property before buying it, which typically costs a few hundred pounds. You can also check whether your home is at risk of flooding through the government website, gov.uk.

There are also ways to protect a home you already own. The flood protection campaigner Mary Long-Dhonau recommends getting a flood door, which will block water, as well as airbricks which automatically shut when water is rising and flood-resistant plaster for the walls. She said a non-return valve could stop water coming up through toilets and drains.

“The very fact that you can show that you are someone who is aware of the risk and has taken all these measures will help you get flood insurance,” Long-Dhonau said.

If you are struggling to find a willing insurer, you can also check the British Insurance Brokers’ Association’s flood insurance directory, which lists insurers who specialise in flooding.