Saturday, January 05, 2008

Flood Plain Insurance - Facts You Must Know

By John Paige

The flood insurance premiums that people pay today are affected mainly by to the location in which they stay. The people who are living near high-risk areas of flood pay higher premiums than those living near the low-risk areas. The difference in payment of those living in high-risk areas and low-risk varies from 20 to 30 in the premium.

As per the recent statistics, more than two million property holdings are situated at the flood risk areas. Whenever you go for the services of an insurance provider, he will look up the map to determine whether you live in the high-risk or low-risk area. Even though you will get the insured amount in case of a flood, an insurance provider will look up to you for the safe guarding your property.

If you happen to live in a flood plain, then naturally your premiums are going to be higher and it will become a financial burden. There have been instances when the providers have denied cover to persons living in high-risk areas. It would simply be a huge loss to the provider to cover someone in such a risk area unless they were to pay an impractically high premium.

If the insurance providers think your house is in a high-risk area, they may even resort to getting a surveyor's report before giving you a policy. If they give a policy to whoever applies without considering the high-risk factor, they will have to increase the cost of premiums for everybody to meet the cost of insurance claims.

A report done in 2004 estimated that by the end of the century, flood damage will have increased twenty fold. This is a result of global climate change and is a threat to the entire world, not only the United Kingom.

Even though the floods can not be stopped, we can protect our homes and properties against it. In order to make it easy, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has worked out a list of tips to protect ourselves against floods. One of the tips advises to replace the concrete floorings with wood and cover it with tiles. In the same way, the bathroom, kitchen, and chipboard units are to be replaced with their plastic counterparts.

Another easy household material to replace is gypsum plaster. It can be replaces with lime plaster or cement, which is considerably more water resistant. It is wise to move things such as service meters, electric appliances, and the electric points of your boilers above the average or expected flood level. One way valves installed into your drainage pipes can prevent sewage backing up through the lines and into your home and producing a very unpleasant flood.

The bottom line is that if you are moving your house or buying a property for the first time, always check whether your intended new home is on a flood plain or not. This information is readily available on the internet on official Government web sites, so there is really no excuse for not knowing - and if you don't know, you can be sure that your future insurance company does!

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