Given that a number of people are potentially being made uninsurable by the almost constant bouts of flooding should they pick up their insurance bill even if it increases x fold in full, or expect some sort of bail out from the taxpayer. My car insurance goes up each year because of prats on the road and there’s no taxpayer money offered to offset it.
Frankly I want to know why the insurance companies think the taxpayer should pick up the burden.
What I have noticed locally is that ditches especially have been allowed to become overgrown/silted up, which means that they flll up quicker and the water has nowhere else to go and drains that are blocked to some extent. On a couple of local roads get anymore than a heavy dew and the water lays. So local councils and water companies are IMO culpable for not carrying out maintenance to ensure water can drain away.
It won’t matter anyway, as come next May, if we’ve not had much precipitation over the winter, there’ll be a hosepipe ban.
Your insurance bill goes up because the stock markets are rubbish at the moment - insurance companies don’t make profit on premiums, but on investing the premiums before they have to pay out.
As for home coverage in flood areas… tough one - you chose to live there! So in my opinion you shouldn’t expect a free lunch. However the Government should take steps to ensure that insurers can offer you an affordable product (bet they don’t though).
How would they do that? If they legislate then everyone’s bill goes up (mine has over the last 3 years due to flood claims and I’m about as likely to experience a flood due to rain as the sun is to stop shining) to give the people living in those areas prone to flooding a cheaper bill.
Frankly if you buy a flash motor then that’s a choice you made and you live with the bills, similarly people choose to live somewhere and if it’s prone to flooding you pick up the tab.
i can see your reasoning, car insurance goes up 'cos of other drivers yet it is the innocent who have to pay - this has little reasoning or blame of the government
the flooded however is linked to the Goverment, they approved for the houses to be built, in some form, either through local governments/councils or other government back insentives to build “affordable homes” for example
if such schemes were places on flood plains then i can see where the home insurance companies are coming from.
i’m not saying it is right or wrong, but that is how i see their reasoning
it is a very good question, each time i come up with a reason to back one side i find a counter argument just as valid…
I still fail to see how the govt at any level is liable, WE create the market for housing, at that developers and councils do is satisfy the demand. If people didn’t want to live in a house they wouldn’t get built.
I watch the news and feel extremely fortunate, but I don’t think to myself, I’ll give them some money towards their insurance, which is what the insurance companies are effectively suggesting.
The Government have control of the planning approval process (albeit usually delegated to local authorities). As such they have a duty of care to ensure that adequate flood defences are in place (as IMHO the developers do too for what its worth!)
I don’t think the government should be compensating people, or paying their insurance, but they shoudl ensure that people can get insurance - they stick their noses into every other facet of our lives - why not this one?