Make sure you have buildings and contents insurance
Firstly, make sure you have up to date buildings and contents insurance.Buildings insurance will make sure your property is structurally protected. Meanwhile, your contents insurance will ensure anything damaged inside your property is covered. Flood insurance should come as standard with your home insurance policy, it will cover the cost of any damage that occurred during a flood (flooding being a natural occurrence like a burst riverbank as opposed to a burst pipe).
Home insurance for flood-prone areas
It’s an understandable concern for homeowners in areas prone to flooding how much their insurance will be or if they will be covered at all. However, there is a joint scheme between the government and the insurance industry called Flood Re whichkeeps costs down for homeowners in high-risk areas. Your insurer will pay out for the damages that you have incurred and then the government reimburses the insurer. However, if you are part of the Flood Re scheme you will need to pay a £250 excess fee for any damage or loss claim.
To find out if you are in an area vulnerable to flooding you can put your postcode into the government website’s flood map.
Preparing for flooding
If your home is prone to flooding, there are adaptations you can make to reduce the damage:
Making a flood insurance claim
Tell your insurer as soon as possible, the process of claiming on insurance because of flooding is a time-consuming process. It could take years for all the damage to be restored as the house will need to be completely dried, so as soon as you tell your insurer the quicker the damage can be assessed. Make sure you document everything, take pictures and videos as well as recording the depth of the water flooding your home.
As tempting as it might be to start fixing things yourself, try to resist as it’s best to wait for the insurer to come and assess the damage to find out exactly what you’re entitled to. If you start fixing things this may affect your claim.
It’s also worth considering whether you want tomake a claim at all. You may have to pay an excess of a few hundred pounds (for example if you make a claim as part of the Flood Re scheme) and if the damage isn’t that bad, you could just pay to have the damage fixed yourself. Although you may think this is a stress you don’t want to deal with, covering the cost yourself will ensure your no claims bonus is not affected and keep the cost of your policy down in the future.