Flood risk home insurance

There may be exclusions stated in your policy. Examples of things that may not be covered are basements and their contents, as well as items such as money, precious metal and important paperwork kept in the house.

The length of a flood insurance claim is dependent on the size of the claim. An average claim of £55,000, for example, could take approximately 8 months from start to finish, while a smaller claim could be over much quicker than this.

If your home is flooded, you must report the water damage to your insurance provider at the earliest time possible to let them know you want to make a claim. Check your policy to see what you are eligible for before getting in contact. Things to ask your insurer are how long it will be before a loss adjuster is able to survey the damage, whether you will be covered for a professional to help with the clean up or redecorating of your home and who will be looking after your claim.

Be sure to keep a record of the flood damage, for example, photographs of the damage, a pen mark on the wall where the water level was at its highest and a list of the damaged items in your home and details.

It is worth knowing if you live in a flood risk area, in order to make an informed decision about how much cover you need. You can find this information free and instantly online, by entering your property’s postcode into the Government’s flood risk assessment page.

A full flood risk assessment is only worth paying for if you are thinking of developing your property. If you are entering a planning application for your property and live in a flood risk zone, you need to complete a flood risk assessment as part of your application. These kinds of assessments explore the probability of a flood at a specific location, the possible causes of floods in the area and advice on managing flood risk.

Flood Re is a flood risk insurance scheme, designed to make flood cover more affordable for UK homeowners which has been in place since 4 April 2016.

The Flood Re scheme enables insurers to take on more customers at risk of flooding because the consequences of large claims are shared between insurers. This happens behind the scenes, so customers can compare and purchase home insurance as they would normally.

Visit the Flood Re website for further details.

Flooding is a serious issue for UK homeowners. Flood Re has been set up to make flood insurance more affordable for those who are at risk of flooding.

Flood Re is regulated by the PRA and FCA.

We use industry tools and sources of data to arrive at a premium, alongside claims and underwriting experience. External data sources include (but are not limited to) the Environment Agency, British Geological Survey Data and Ordnance Survey historical flood mapping to understand if you are situated in a flood risk area. We also use flood modelling data as this data provides flood risk data at an individual property level rather, than postcode level.

There are several online resources which you can visit to get more information on flood risk in your area, namely:

• Flood Free Homes wants all UK houses to be free of risk by 2025.
• National Flood Forum provides support and advice to communities or individuals that have been flooded.
• Know Your Flood Risk works to raise awareness of the risk of flooding from all sources, not just a visible water course such as rivers and seas.

This depends on a large number of factors including how widespread the flood was, how severe the damage caused was, and how many properties were affected is the first variable. After a major flood event, insurance companies often take on additional loss adjusters, but even so the time it can take for you to be visited by one can be longer than you'd like.

Cleaning and drying operations can take many weeks or months depending on the availability of services and how greatly your property has been affected, as well as what your home is made of.

Finally, reinstatement works themselves are also time-consuming. The process of choosing replacement furniture, decoration and fitted units (which you may have originally selected over the course of years) takes time, especially if you are working and have little time to shop around, and then you need to wait for delivery and fitting.