Julia Kollewe in the Guardian (UK): Climate change will increase the risk of flooding in the UK, which could lead to dramatic rises in insurance premiums for homeowners and businesses and make some areas of the country uninsurable, the Association of British Insurers has warned. "Flood risk is the main catastrophic risk in the UK and we know that climate change will bring increased flood risk to the UK," said Nick Starling, director of general insurance and health at the ABI.He said the pattern and nature of floods in recent years suggested that global warming was starting to have an impact: the severe floods in the summer of 2007 and the Cumbrian floods last year were caused by heavy downpours that did not dissipate.
"What our members are concerned about is the increase in areas of flood risk so that some areas may become impossible to insure," he added. He pointed to some "frankly daft planning decisions" where new homes were being built on flood plains.
The insurance industry has already warned that it may not insure new developments in flood plains if the properties were granted planning approval against Environment Agency advice….
Great shot by Peter Cooper of two mellow guys in a 2007 flood, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license
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