Floods of tears
In 1990 Saga sent me to Towyn on the coast of north Wales. That February exceptional winds and tides had combined to breach the sea wall and 3200 homes in four square miles were inundated with five hundred million tons of water. It settled five feet high inside the houses – and most were bungalows. The residents, mainly retired people, lost everything. The great majority had no insurance.
This week’s heavy rain and the flooding that followed made me think of Towyn and the people who rebuilt their lives with help from charity and friends. Seventeen years ago it seemed an exceptional event, a one-off tragedy. But in the years since we have had many spells of record weather – the year 2000 was the wettest for 270 years, last autumn and winter combined were the wettest on record and this week’s rainfall broke further records. Thousands of homes have been flooded. And for people living in many parts of the country it is getting harder to insure their homes at all or at least at a price they can afford.
Altogether 2.2 million homes are in flood risk areas and around 440,000 of those are likely to flood more often than once in every 75 years. The insurance industry has said it will cover homes if the risk of flooding is better than once every 75 years. It will also continue to insure them where the risk is higher if the Government has plans in place to reduce it to that level. But providing that much flood protection is a long and difficult job and some areas near the sea or by rivers will never be protected to that level. The Government’s plans were not helped by a cut of nearly £15 million in last year’s flood defence budget.
That leaves many of the extreme risk 440,000 homes difficult or impossible to insure. And although the rest of the high risk 2.2 million homes can be insured, premiums have shot up, sometimes to unaffordable levels.
In many other countries – including most of Europe – they do things differently. Insurance policies there generally do not cover flood. When homes are damaged or destroyed by floods or some other natural disasters, it is central or local government which steps in with financial help. That way society as a whole bears the cost rather than leaving it to a lottery of where we live and whether we can get insurance.
As the climate changes we may have to consider that system here.
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