Is Your Home at Risk of Flooding? Tips to Stay Dry from Confused.com

• Featured Articles
• Published: 05 Nov 2009 in Household and Home Insurance

By Carl Chambers

With floods hitting the headlines once again, it’s a good time to remind homeowners of the potential risks to property and how best to protect your home should the waters start lapping at your doorstep.

Is my home in a flood risk area?

The first thing to do is find out if your home lies in a flood risk area. If you live in England or Wales, the Environment Agency produces flood maps which are viewable online. Simply enter your postcode and a local map will show how vulnerable you are. You can then click on a location to see how likely a flood is at a specific location. For Scottish residents, SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) offers a similar service.

In England and Wales, a worrying one in six homes are shown to be at risk of flooding on the maps, and even though a number of flood defence schemes have been put in place throughout the UK following the great floods of 2007, many areas continue to be at risk. For example:

• Scotland saw its worst August rainfall in recorded history, and the following month, almost 1000 homes were evacuated in areas around Moray, Elgin and Fochabers.
• Wales increased its number of properties at risk of flooding due to rivers and sea from 170,000 in 2008 to 222,000 in 2009.
• England: In Oxfordshire, nearly 1800 properties were added to the Environment Agency’s flood map, whilst 660 properties already on the map were upgraded to being at greater risk.

Protect your home if floods strike

We all remember the big floods of June 2007, a deluge that resulted in billions of pounds in home insurance claims. Yet despite extensive media coverage of the damage, months afterwards the Association of British Insurers (ABI) claimed that one in four houses were still without home insurance.

Added to that, a recent Environment Agency report estimated that the annual cost of flood damage in England could rise from £2.5 billion to £4 billion by 2035 unless funding for defences is increased.

Of course, if you are uninsured, it’s up to you to decide whether it’s wise to remain so if you live in an at-risk floodplain area, but even though home insurance will cost you a little more, the benefits of such protection will become apparent should your home suffer serious flood damage.

Sign up to flood alerts by text

The Environment Agency can text you free flood alerts. So far, nearly half a million people have signed up to the Floodline Warnings Direct service since its launch. SEPA will begin offering a similar service from 2011.

Environment Agency: Receive alerts via telephone, mobile, email, text and fax. To sign up, call 0845 988 1188 or visit the Floodline Warnings Direct registration page.

SEPA: Free text alerts commence in 2011. Until then, live flood alerts are available on the SEPA website, or you can call Floodline on 0845 988 1188.

Quick tips in the event of a flood

• Listen out for TV/radio weather warnings. Better still, sign up for text alerts.
• Keep home insurance details in a secure, dry place.
• If flood strikes, move as many valuables as possible from downstairs to upstairs.
• Place sandbags outside external doors.
• Floods can also damage your car, so makes sure you have adequate car insurance.
• If the authorities advise you to leave your home, do so – better safe than sorry!
• Switch off gas, water and electricity at the mains (get a qualified engineer to reconnect them afterwards).

For more tips, check out Confused.com’s Guide to Protecting Your Home Against a Flood.

Related articles:

Warning Over Future Welsh Flooding

Home Insurance Buyer’s Guide