It's raining, it's pouring....... -

Northern England is suffering its wettest June on record with a sixth of the annual rain falling in just 12 hours on Monday. Widespread flooding across the UK will cost the insurance industry £500m, according to modelling firm Risk Management Solutions (RMS).

Images of flood stricken streets have filled the media, more than 3,500 people have already been evacuated from their homes, and at least five people have died.

Broker Aon said it had already received more than £1m worth of claims. John Bell, head of claims at Aon, said more commercial property had been affected than in the Carlisle or West Country floods.

“Most commercial policies will cover flood damage but, typically, flood losses take longer to settle as the property needs time to dry out before all damage can be identified," he said. "As soon as possible, businesses must identify the extent of the damage through qualified loss adjusters and then notify their insurer to negotiate settlement. Insurers and brokers will then work with specialists to help restore the property.”

The flooding has buoyed the Association of British Insurers' (ABI) call for greater government spending on flood defences. The ABI has consistently urged the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to increase the budget for the Environment Agency’s spending on such defences.

It says a further £8bn needs to be spent in the next 25 to 30 years in order to protect the UK from severe flood losses.

RMS said that insured losses from the recent floods could exceed £500m. The severe and widespread flooding, which has hit North East England the hardest, already appears to be worse than the 1998 floods, which damaged around 3,000 properties and resulted in £190m in today’s value of insured loss, according to RMS.

Northern England is suffering its wettest June on record with a sixth of the annual rain falling in just 12 hours on Monday. An estimated 8,600 insurance claims were made last Monday (25 June), with the cost of the damage likely to run into hundreds of millions of pounds. The British Chamber of Commerce said the torrential rain could cost the economy up to £400m a day.

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It's raining, it's pouring.......

07-03-2007 4:56 PM

It's raining, it's pouring.......