Passionate About Insurance...

Passionate About Insurance…

Monday, 10 October 2016

Flood Insurance - Fairweather Insurances Responds.


It is almost impossible to title a flood insurance article without making a pun. Flood Claims on the Rise, Turning the Tide on Flood Insurance etcetera. Even my less than interesting title above carries a little rye smile given the name of our firm.

We write a lot about Flood cover but I make no apology for that. It is very much a hot topic and has been for some time now.

Given the rise of flooding over the last decade and the huge losses incurred by Insurers it is not surprising that it is often difficult to find appropriate cover. Many direct markets simply don't have the time, capacity or inclination to investigate specifics or mitigating circumstances and you might be faced with a 'computer says no' situation.

Similarly many of the insurers we deal with have invested in very sophisticated flood mapping and so whilst you may not have suffered any flood issues to date the flood mapping predicts the likelihood of flood from burst rivers, standing water, saturated ground etcetera. It isn't just your property's proximity to water that insurers rely upon. You might recall a few years ago when the Thames burst it's banks in the Chertsey area and houses half a mile away from the river experienced flooding. A rise in the local water table, the river bursting and the amount of rainfall meant the water simply had nowhere to go. Now more postcodes are considered 'at risk' because of these factors.

The environment agency will have a wealth of information about the risk of flood in your area but insurers go beyond this using their own experiences in predicting the risk moving forward. Although we do not have access to the mapping tools we do deal with a wide range of insurers every day and with a range of products and attitudes to flood and so we are best placed to target those providers we know with some flexibility.

In addition we have engaged and negotiated with insurers who have agreed to take a view on Flood cover when presented with some supporting evidence. Accordingly if you are being told by your existing provider that they will not cover you or they are applying terms I'd encourage you to contact us as this client did -

"As my property is situated in-between a river and a canal, I was finding it difficult to find an insurance company willing to cover me. Fairweather were able to act quickly and obtain me flood insurance within 24 hours at an excellent price"

We look forward to hearing from you.

Alistair