Flood Insurance

Flood insurance is a specific product under the umbrella of insurance and it covers - as the name suggests - losses that occur due to flooding. In many cases, this form of protection (flood insurance) is part of the buildings and contents insurance, and if a property is flooded then the building insurance covers the cost, typically, of repairing and restoring the property and affected fixtures and fittings, and some other associated costs.

There are various risk factors involved with assessing flood insurance, notably of course whether the property lies on the flood plain of a river or other major body of water, how low lying the land is, how susceptible to flooding the area is and how many times it has flooded in recent history, and more besides.

When buying a house in the UK usually a flood check will be done on the property when you buy it and you will be told whether the risk of the property flooding is high or low and so forth. Of course if the risk of flooding is perceived to be very high, then you can struggle to get insurance at all.

Typically those who live in flood risk areas will be required to do as much as they can to flood-proof their homes when taking out insurance, or else they could face extremely high premiums and excesses, or may be refused cover.

It is estimated, according to government figures, that there are 5.2million properties that are at risk of flooding in England, with 1.4 million being at risk from rivers or the sea, 2.8m from surface water and 1m at risk from both.

If you are looking for information on obtaining flood insurance in a high risk area, then you might find this document on the www.gov.uk website a useful read.

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