I was listening yesterday to a discussion on R4 about the
difficulties of getting insurance fro properties susceptible to
flooding. One woman said she had been able to get insuarnce
because of a government scheme, but only with an excess of
£10,000. Others had been unable to get any cover at all, or to
seel their houses because prospective buyers cannot get a
mortgage.

There was a proposal to spread the risk by treating all
properties the same and spread the risk, so that the 2% who
regularly suffer from flooding would be able to get cover.

So, for example, someone who is buying contents insurance for a
tenth-floor flat in a block built half-way up a hill would have
to pay £3 extra on their premium to cover the flood risk for
people in houses that get flooded.

(OT - if they can agree to pool the risk of flooding over all
properties over the whole country, the logical next step would
be to pool the risk of car insurance over all drivers, so that
careful and responsible drivers who live in quite country areas
and keep a modest saloon in a garage would pay the same as
careless and irresponsible boy racers who keep expensive models
parked on the street; or to pool health risks so that people
with heart problems would pay the same for travel insurance as
young healthy people.)

It seems to me that the people who should be paying for the
flood damage are the developers who build on flood plains,
haughs, watermeadows, inches, whatever you like to call them,
and the local authorities who give planning permission for such
developments.

That would not help people in older properties that get flooded,
but at least it would place the blame squarely where it belongs
as far as new building is concerned. It would also be a powerful
disincentive to future building on flood-prone land.

Anne
Several metres above the floodplain of the River Spey