ABI Confirms Insurers’ UK Flood Coverage Efforts; Losses May Top $1.6 Billion

December 28, 2015

Mark Shepherd, General Insurance Policy Manager at the Association of British Insurers (ABI), said: “Insurers will be doing everything possible to help customers hit by the latest floods.

“They will be operating 24 hour emergency helplines to give customers immediate advice and help. As they have been doing in Cumbria, where needed they will make emergency payments and arrange temporary alternative accommodation or business premises.

“As soon as flood waters recede and it is safe to do so they will be assessing damage, and start the drying out process. Sadly there was also flooding over the Christmas and New Year period in the winter of 2013 and we saw then that many loss adjusters were on the ground the same day to help people affected.”

The ABI also listed the following steps that insurers will be taking as soon as possible to help deal with householders and businesses hit by flooding:
– Contacting customers proactively in flooded areas to offer assistance.
– Ensuring claims lines have the capacity to deal with all customer calls promptly, to provide advice and assistance.
– Deploying insurers’ own emergency response teams in all areas where they have a significant number of affected customers.
– Making emergency payments to support flooded customers, their families and businesses where necessary for immediate needs.
– Providing alternative accommodation and business premises as a matter of urgency to affected eligible customers.
– Sending loss adjusters to flooded homes and businesses as soon as is practically possible.

In an earlier bulletin issued after floods earlier this month caused damage in Cumbria and the Midlands, the ABI said insurance claims were estimated to amount to £6.7 million [$10 million] a day from customers hit by the recent flooding.

The bulletin described those floods as the “wettest winter on record,” indicating that they were “likely to result in £446 million [$666 million] being paid in insurance claims to customers whose homes, businesses, and vehicles were flooded.”

No estimates have yet been released for the losses from the latest wave of floods that have inundated parts of York, the Greater Manchester area and other towns in the English Midlands.

The ABI said, however, that based on estimates for the period of 23 December 2013 to 28 February this year, “the projected cost of storm damage claims over the same period, insurers will be paying an estimated £1.1 billion [$1.64 billion] to help their customers recover from the effects of the bad weather.”

Source: The Association of British Insurers

Topics Carriers Profit Loss Flood

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