Flood insurance: a sorry tale

It can't have escaped your notice that we are on the precipice of winter, after a particularly dismal summer. The children are back at school, the nights are drawing in and we are heading towards the meteorological blight of increased rainfall.

All too often, we see the television news where a welly-booted reporter is standing in a foot of water beside some poor home-owners relating the damage that the flood has incurred, as the camera pans around the dirty water swelling around the building. 

Unfortunately, that situation is worsening across the country as a direct result of the climate change crisis. This means your insurance premiums will be increased if you are unfortunate enough to be affected by any water damage.

But it's not just those who have seen their homes damaged and their personal property lost who are impacted!

Zoe Wood, the consumer affairs correspondent writing for The Guardian, has written an interesting article that looks into a home insurance case submitted by a reader in Scotland.

The poor individual wrote that he had previously paid a £440 in 2023 with Saga, but that, in 2024 when it came to renewal time, the quote for his premium had been multiplied to the stunning amount of £4,730 (an eyebrow-raising increase of over 1,000%!).

He says in his description that he pushed hard to get an explanation but that none was forthcoming, even though the correspondent on the other end of the telephone registered almost as much surprise as he had.

As far as he was aware, he continued, there had not been any significant events, such as a sudden increase in burglaries or any flooding.

Does this sound familiar to you? Perhaps you've had a significant rise in your premiums with nothing extraordinary happening in your property's location or to its structure.

Or maybe you thought that, with inflation and other triggers, everything was just getting more expensive all the time and paid the premium with a typically British grumble.

There are stories of people receiving significant premium increases, going online and checking what other insurers are quoting, and then taking back to their insurer to get the premium amount reduced.

But that's what the Guardian reader in Scotland tried doing but to no avail.

First of all, it's worth pointing out that it's not your fault, and nor is it really much to do with the economy.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) have stated that insurance payouts hit record quarterly high, with payouts in excess of £144m for the second quarter of the year, purely for damage created by storms, heavy rain and frozen pipes.

That explains some of the increase in the size of the premiums people are being asked to pay by their insurers.

Another factor is brought in by Wood's Guardian article. She contacted Saga on her reader's behalf to get to the bottom of why they were holding so rigid on the vastly-inflated quote.

Their response was revealing: “The previous underwriter has revised its underwriting criteria and no longer accepts older properties in flood-risk areas.”

The key phrase is “older properties in flood-risk areas”.

This is potentially worrying because you may or may not be aware of the flood-risk status of the broader area where you're living, even if there are no recorded floods occurring nearby. The point is that the insurers' underwriters believe that the area might be susceptible to flooding in time and they are preparing for that eventuality if it ever occurs.

The ABI, for their part, has called for the government to take urgent action to “tackle surface-water flooding and maintain flood investments and maintenance”.

Whether this will be the case is difficult to predict with the new government dealing with problems in the UK's finances. The suspicion is that they will only act after any serious flooding event occurs because of the differing priorities they have to deal with.

The National Flood Forum has links to up-to-date flood-risk maps from the Environment Agency (for England) and Natural Resources (for Wales), but this is to check whether you are at risk from flooding now, rather than an assessment of the ongoing flood risk for the area. 

There is a separate check (for England; for Wales, use this link), which provides the information you can use to identify the long-term possibility of flooding around your location.

If you are planning to buy a property, you'll want the peace of mind that comes with knowing what the future looks like with flooding. Your conveyancing solicitor will advise whether you need to have a flood risk report carried out or not. 

Or you can discuss it with them and agree to pay the extra to receive the report. You may even wish to use the resultant report in any correspondence with your insurers should they try to boost your premiums.

Worried about the flood risk or any aspect of your purchase? Need some expert guidance on the steps to take with the legal side of buying your new home, particularly when it comes to flood risks in its location?

That's where you can rely on the experts at Homeward Legal! 

They will start work on your planned purchase as soon as you agree to the quotation and appoint them to represent you. 

Homeward Legal will also provide a quote that will not change - what you are quoted is what you pay for standard conveyancing process.

There are some unforeseen items that might arise during the purchase and/or sale, but the solicitor discusses these and their cost as they come up. 

In addition, to protect the homebuyer further, Homeward Legal operates a ‘no completion, no fee' promise, which ensures that, should the purchase or sale not go through as planned to completion status, no payment is required.

Call  to get your conveyancing quote started, or to discuss your concerns with your plans to move.

Or you can get a quick quote, using Homeward Legal's easy-to-use quote generator.