Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Paying for others’ flooding

The Northern Echo (UK): Although they may live miles from a river or coast, many Britons could be paying sizeable sums for household insurance to protect other people’s homes against a risk of flooding in an era of dramatic climate change. This intriguing thought emerges from the Automobile Association’s British Insurance Premium Index, which has tracked home insurance premiums since 1994.

The AA confirms a 22 per cent surge in the Shoparound index (an average of the three lowest premiums for each risk quoted in the Index) since last year’s floods. AA Insurance director Simon Douglas said: “The days of cheap home insurance deals may be numbered. The sharp rise over the past year indicated by the Shoparound index for buildings cover suggests insurers offering the lowest premiums have revised rates to take account of predictions of more frequent flash flooding.”

Mr Douglas thinks insurers are responding to new mapping from the Environment Agency, which considers risks of sudden flooding as a result of heavy rain that can overcome drainage systems and hit thousands of homes....

Sluice gates on the River Thames near Henley-on-Thames taken by KayEss, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2

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