Keep your head above water

THE COST of flooding could affect as many homes and businesses as last year, ironically because insurance premium increases since then have led some people to take a chance on lightning not striking twice - and to risk it by not taking out cover.

Home and contents insurance had increased on average by up to 10% in the year before this month's rain, but by much more for many people in high-risk areas, especially if they have been flooded before. In some cases, insurers are refusing to take them on.

The Environment Agency says five million people live and work in natural flood plains, where two million homes, 185,000 businesses and land, property and other assets worth up to £214bn could be damaged.

Three days before a month's rain fell last weekend, Alison Baptise, the EA's southern region flood defence manager, warned flooding remained a risk across a wide swathe of the South East. 'The worrying trend shown by our national research is that people who have escaped flooding in the past don't think they're at risk this year,' she said.

She advises property owners to check their insurance cover as one of their flood precautions, because only one in 10 do anything to protect themselves. Despite floods in 1998 and 1999, a third of the people affected then did little or nothing to guard against last year's floods. The proportion rises to a half for people who live in areas at risk but who had escaped the waters.

The floods duly arrived this time last year, and this year there was a national TV advertising campaign. It began on 17 September, less than a week before the heavens opened.

Broker Adrian Willmott of Jardine Lloyd Thompson's municipal risk division, said: 'Premiums have rocketed in high-risk areas, forcing many people to take a chance on being uninsured.'

About a fifth of UK householders have no insurance cover, Willmott said. This rises to 70% among tenants of council or housing association-owned homes who are not obliged to have the home or contents cover that is required of mortgage holders.

Many find it hard to afford current premiums, already boosted by the perceived crime risk in poorer areas. Others do not have a bank account, so cannot make the direct-debit payments some insurers require.

Insurers and local authorities could do more to make home insurance available, Willmott argues, adding that Jardine practices what it preaches by working with councils on ways to make contents insurance available to the households of the most vulnerable for as little as 7p a day.

The Environment Agency is doing its best to bring home the flood risk to people. If you are online you can tap into the www.environment-agency.gov.uk website for prospects in your postcode. But the insurance industry can read and it is now tapping into www.environment-agency.gov.uk to see if your premium could do with a little waterproofing.