What to do if your home is damaged in Storm Brendan

The Met Office has this week issued a yellow warning across Dorset for the oncoming Storm Brendan.

For areas in the UK where flooding has occurred multiple times, residents in these areas have discovered that finding a household insurance policy has high premiums and is often not very affordable.

Christchurch has been affected numerous times in recent years, with their latest flooding coming at the end of last year as well as in 2018, and flood alerts have also been issued for today. Due to its frequency, residents may therefore struggle when it comes to finding a household policy which covers flood damage.

As a result of this and other areas, such as Yalding in Kent, being affected by this problem, insurers and the Government have come up with a joint initiative called Flood Re which has an aim to make the flood cover part of household insurance policies more affordable.

Jackie Randall from Lion Insurance Consultants said: “Flood Re gives you a lot of information on flood resources and how to minimise damage if you live in an area which is known to flood but it is only available to properties that have been built for a certain number of years and is not applicable to new builds in flood areas but it does make it possible for people to insure against flood if they’ve had previous flooding or live in a very high rated area and makes it affordable with a lower excess.”

Insurers will advise to a certain extent but there are normally local support groups that would help them with that.

For more information on your particular area in regards to flood warnings, please click here.