Flood Re Tours UK With ‘Floodmobile’ Before COP26 to Highlight Flood Resilience
Flood Re, the joint initiative between the UK government and insurance industry to help make home flood insurance more affordable, has been touring flood-prone cities in the UK to highlight the resilience measures that residents and businesses can install to mitigate against the risks of increased flooding.
The Floodmobile, a specially adapted mobile home that showcases 50 examples of property flood resilience (PFR) measures, is visiting Worcester, York, Hull and Carlisle, before arriving today, Oct. 29, at the COP26 summit venue of Glasgow.
Flood Re Head of Communications Kelly Ostler-Coyle will be accompanied on the tour by Mary Dhonau, a flood victim and campaigner, popularly known as “Flood Mary,” to highlight the 21st anniversary this week of her first campaign to raise awareness of flood risk.
Adaptation and resilience is one of the key themes of COP26, and the object of the tour is to highlight the critical importance of adapting buildings by fitting them with appropriate products to enable them to withstand the increased threat of flooding.
Flood Re has developed a Build Back Better (BBB) scheme, which will be available through some insurers after April 2022. BBB is designed to reduce the cost and impact of future floods by improving the roll-out and access to property resilience measures.
Flood Re’s research found that not only will BBB encourage PFR take-up, it will also reduce the severity and frequency of flood insurance claims.
“At COP26 there will, quite rightly, be a focus on the efforts of nations to reach net zero carbon emissions, but there is an urgent need right now for homes, businesses and governments to adapt to the climate, including the installation of PFR measures,” commented Andy Bord, chief executive of Flood Re, in a statement.
“The Floodmobile contains 50 great examples of effective, practical and easy-to-install measures which businesses and homeowners can implement now. This will significantly improve the resilience of their buildings to the inevitable increased risk of flood we will face in the coming years as a result of global warming,” he added.
“This month marks 21 years since I was flooded and started to campaign to raise awareness of flood risk. Since then, due to climate change, I have watched flooding become more devastating as the years go by, with people forced out of their homes for months on end,” said Dhonau.
“The Floodmobile demonstrates just what as can be done at a property level to reduce the awful impact a flood can have. I honestly believe that adaptation against flooding should be on the top of everyone’s agenda, and it is time and money well spent,” she continued.
Since Flood Re was launched in 2016, the availability and affordability of home insurance for householders at risk of flooding has improved significantly with more than 350,000 households benefiting from the scheme to date.
Flood Re explained that 94% of households with a prior flood claim can receive quotes from five or more insurers (compared to 0% before the introduction of the scheme), and four out of five households have seen a reduction in their insurance premium of more than 50%.
Source: Flood Re
Photograph: The Floodmobile, a specially adapted mobile home that showcases examples of property flood resilience (PFR) measures, is visiting four UK cities before arriving at the COP26 summit venue of Glasgow on Friday, 29 October.