Accessibility of flood risk insurance in the UK: confusion, competition and complacency (original) (raw)
Related papers
Defra Consultation - Securing the future availability and affordability of home insurance in areas of flood risk, 2013
This submission has been prepared by Katharine Knox, Programme Manager, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, with input from Martin O'Neill, University of York. We also acknowledge the work of John O'Neill, University of Manchester on this topic. The submission draws on O’Neill and O’Neill’s work for JRF, Social Justice and the Future of Flood Insurance (2012) and Sarah Lindley, John O’Neill et al, Climate Change Justice and Vulnerability (2011). The JRF has been conducting research on climate change and social justice since 2009. In this context we have been considering social vulnerability to flooding in the UK and examining the future of flood insurance as an important safety net for people who may be affected by flooding. Our overall view is that we need to ensure that future flood insurance is affordable and accessible, and that the policy approach that is followed takes proper account of issues of social justice (in particular to consider issues of social vulnerability, poverty and disadvantage and to develop equitable policy responses that take account of this). JRF's Viewpoint report, Social justice and the future of flood insurance (O'Neill and O'Neill 2012) highlights the limitations to allowing a market based approach to future flood insurance to be applied and the negative potential outcomes for social justice of moving towards fully risk-reflective pricing for flood insurance. As such, we are therefore concerned that the proposals suggest a Flood Re model as a short term solution, with the intention of moving to a market based risk reflective pricing model in the longer term. We are concerned that the options outlined have not considered the potential for a stronger state role, such as that applied in many other comparable countries (e.g. France, Spain, Iceland, etc.). In particular we would be interested in raising the issue of whether the chosen approach, which relies heavily on funding reinsurance, offers good value for money, when compared to other models, which are able to take advantages of the savings of scale and coordination that can be made possible by giving a larger role to the state. Inspite of these reservations, we recognise that the preferred model of Flood Re is an attempt to provide a collective response to support those households at highest flood risk. We welcome this development, as this supports our view that we need a solidaristic approach to dealing with vulnerability, in order to avoid potential housing blight in areas of highest risk, and resulting social problems, if flood insurance becomes unaffordable. We recognise that of the models proposed, this is likely to have the greatest buy-in and provide the best short term solution. However we have a number of reservations and would like to see certain issues below addressed if this model is to be followed.
Take up of property-level flood protection: An exploratory study in Worcester, UK
Proceedings of the 5th Annual Conference on Building Resilience, 2015
Significant numbers of homes within the UK are at risk of flooding. Although community level flood protection schemes are the first line of defence for mitigating flood risk, not all properties are protectable. Property-Level Flood Protection (PLFP) provides those unprotected homeowners with an approach for protecting their homes from flooding. This study sought to establish why property-level flood protection is needed and secondly assess the extent of take up using Worcester as the study area. An exploratory questionnaire survey was conducted to achieve these objectives. After consultation of available literature it was established that the introduction of PLFP protection provided numerous benefits including limiting the health & psychological effects flooding poses, the direct financial benefits and also the possible influence on gaining flood insurance. Despite the benefits and the recognition given to PLFP by the government it was found that the overall take up of the measures was low, findings which were further backed up by data collected in the study area of Worcester with only 23% of the sample having introduced PLFP measures. Reasoning for the low take up numbers typically included; unawareness of the measures, low risk of flood event, installation costs and inability to introduce due to tenancy. Age was noted as a significant impacting factor in the study area with none of the respondents under 25 suggesting they had "a good amount of knowledge of PLFP measures" even when they claimed their properties to be at risk of flooding. Guidance and support is especially recommended to those who are unable to manage their own flood risk for e.g. social housing/rental tenants.
International Journal of Safety and Security Engineering
Flood events have far-reaching consequences, not only in economic or financial terms but also in social and health-related impacts. There is a growing body of research that suggests that property-level flood risk adaptation (PLFRA) measures have the potential to benefit homeowners by reducing the impact of flooding on households. Emphasis has, therefore, been placed on the implementation of PLFRA measures, and yet despite this, the take-up among the at-risk residents in England is low. One of the reasons identified in the literature is that homeowners do not clearly recognise the benefits of the measures. This research uses a survey of households affected by the summer 2007 flood event in England to investigate the perception of homeowners in connection with the benefits of PLFRA measures. The results highlight that there is a consensus among respondents that implementing adaptation measures has the potential to reduce health-related flood impacts such as worrying, stress and strain between families. However, there was a high level of uncertainty with regard to potential financial benefits from investing in adaptation measures, in the form of premium reduction by insurers. It was evident from the analysis that knowledge of the frequency of future flood events and expected flood damage rated highly among the factors perceived by homeowners to influence the uptake of PLFRA measures. Furthermore, the results show that there is a wide range of opinion among the respondents as to who is responsible for protecting homes against flood risk. For instance, the government flood protection scheme has the potential to provide a confusing message to floodplain residents as to whose responsibility it is to protect properties against flood risk. It is, therefore, recommended that at-risk population should be made aware of the limits of the responsibilities of other stakeholders in the domain of flood risk management at household levels. However, it is anticipated that the introduction of the new UK flood insurance scheme, Flood Re, may help to bring more clarity. There is a need to increase the motivation of homeowners to invest in PLFRA measures, which could be achieved through a range of actions, including the provision of subsidies and incentives, which would help in promoting more sustainable behaviour.
Responding to Flood Risk in the UK
Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, 2013
This chapter considers the response of UK householders to the country's most widespread and damaging natural hazard, flooding. Although flood risk affects 3 million UK residents and major floods in 1998, 2000, 2005, 2007 and 2009 received extensive media coverage, few at-risk householders take any action to reduce their risk exposure. Research conducted in London, Reading and Leeds suggests that people who have insufficient confidence in their ability to manage their exposure to the material impacts of flooding choose instead to adopt anxiety-avoidance strategies such as blame and fatalism. These strategies protect social representations that enable citizens to achieve a feeling of safety in their lives but they also de-legitimise the discourse of risk mitigation. The research suggests that protection of self identity and social identity also play a role. Only when traumatic or repeated experiences of flooding force changes to identity and make the retention of old representations untenable are these psychological strategies abandoned. When this occurs, individuals either learn to accept the existence of the risk or else fall into a state of disabling anxiety. Research on the barriers and incentives for the implementation of property-level mitigation measures was conducted by the author between 2004 and 2010 across a range of urban and rural areas of England and Wales, using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
Why Most “At-Risk” Homeowners Do Not Protect Their Homes from Flooding
Impacts and Responses for the Built Environment, 2011
In spite of the widespread and well-publicised availability of measures to retrofit properties so as to reduce flood risk (Environment Agency, 2010; National Flood Forum, 2010), take-up of these measures is low. Survey evidence reported in this chapter reveals that only 33% of people who have experienced a flood take steps to protect their homes from further flooding and less than 8% of those do who have never been flooded. This chapter addresses the question of why this is so and asks what factors seem to encourage and discourage householders from taking steps that, at first glance, might seem obvious. The chapter investigates the proposition that behaviour in the face of risks such as flooding is influenced not only by the scientific evidence on the risk but also by the way people perceive that risk and, indeed, choose to perceive it. Furthermore, it proposes and tests the hypothesis that responses to long-term flood risk might be influenced as much by people's responses to the available adaptation measures as by their evaluations of the extent of the risk. Behaviour change strategies sometimes focus on people's understandings of the physical workings of risk processes and adaptation measures and try to plug the gaps in these understandings by providing more and better information (e.g. Bostrom et al., 1992; Atman et al., 1994; Siudak, 2001). However, although people's technical grasp of flood risk plays a part, this understanding, rather than simply reflecting the available scientific information, is influenced by other social and individual factors (Homan, 2001; Burningham, 2008), including the way in which people perceive the whole notion of adaptation. To this end, the argument presented here draws on the author's analysis of survey data collected for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) by Entec, Greenstreet Berman and John Chatterton Associates (Entec et al., 2008) (n = 555) and data collected by the author in semistructured interviews and focus groups conducted between 2005 and 2008 (n = 60). 24.2 Semi-structured Interviews and Focus Groups The author collected qualitative data during 2005 and 2008 in semi-structured interviews and focus groups with sixty residents of areas in SE England, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. All were highrisk areas, but some had been flooded recently while others had not. Furthermore, two of the recently flooded areas had benefited from publicly funded schemes that provided householders with free advice and free or subsidised flood protection. Participants were selected from across the range of types of household tenure, social grade and household composition. Interviews followed a loose structure that covered people's experiences of flooding and their experiences of, and attitudes toward, flood protection and resilience. These were recorded, fully transcribed and then analysed using thematic and discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003). The analysis of the qualitative data aimed to reveal the justifications and explanations householders gave for their behaviour (the thematic analysis) and also to examine the underlying representational structures and discourses that underpinned these rhetorical strategies (the discourse analysis). The next step was to use quantitative analysis of survey data to discern which, if any, of the incentives and objections identified in the qualitative analysis had a statistically significant impact on behaviour. 24.3 The Survey The survey used for this purpose was collected for Defra in 2007 by the risk consultancy Greenstreet Berman, using a questionnaire whose design was informed by the findings of the early elements of the above qualitative analysis. The full questionnaire is available in Entec et al. (2008). The sample population for the survey consisted of telephone numbers in postcode areas with a greater than 80% concentration of properties with a return period of 1:75 or higher according to the Environment Agency's National Flood Risk Assessment (NaFRA) 2006 Postcode Flood Likelihood Category Database. Individuals were telephoned on weekdays between 9am and 7pm. Where calls were answered and people admitted to being previously aware of the flood risk, they were invited to take part in the research. Out of 6,000 telephone numbers called, half responded, a third of these claimed not to be aware of living in a flood risk area and one in four of the remainder agreed to take part.
Responding to Flood Hazard in the Uk
This chapter considers the response of UK householders to the country’s most widespread and damaging natural hazard, flooding. Although flood risk affects 3 million UK residents and major floods in 1998, 2000, 2005, 2007 and 2009 received extensive media coverage, few at-risk householders take any action to reduce their risk exposure. Research conducted in London, Reading and Leeds suggests that people who have insufficient confidence in their ability to manage their exposure to the material impacts of flooding choose instead to adopt anxiety-avoidance strategies such as blame and fatalism. These strategies protect social representations that enable citizens to achieve a feeling of safety in their lives but they also de-legitimise the discourse of risk mitigation. The research suggests that protection of self identity and social identity also play a role. Only when traumatic or repeated experiences of flooding force changes to identity and make the retention of old representations untenable are these psychological strategies abandoned. When this occurs, individuals either learn to accept the existence of the risk or else fall into a state of disabling anxiety.
Public attitudes towards flooding and property-level flood protection measures
Natural Hazards, 2015
The number of residential properties at risk from flooding is predicted to rise in the future, and it is clear that large scale flood defence schemes are not always feasible. There is thus an increasing onus on the public to protect their own properties. This paper reports the results of a stakeholder consultation investigating public attitudes towards flooding and property level flood protection (PLFP) in general, and peoples' "willingness to pay" for PFLP specifically. The findings show that flooded households have suffered significant financial and social impacts. Despite some continued uncertainty surrounding flood risk responsibility, the majority of the public surveyed were willing to pay for property level flood protection, with a mean contribution of approximately £800. Whilst this paper broadly confirms some of the findings of earlier studies, it also indicates that public education and promotion campaigns have been effective in raising awareness and uptake of PLFP, and that people are willing to pay more to protect their properties. The findings also support the notion that an increased awareness of PFLP, and an increased willingness to pay for PLFP, is linked to the scale of flooding and impacts, rather than just the frequency, as well as financial subsidies. The results of the study are particularly relevant to institutional stakeholders, as they can help guide the development of strategies to increase the uptake of such measures. Whilst the project focuses on the situation in Scotland, the findings will have resonance in similar countries throughout Europe and beyond.
Journal of Flood Risk Management, 2021
Residents should take adaptive action to reduce flood risk-this claim increasingly resonates in the academic debate on flood risk management (FRM). Hence, it must be assumed that a change in the division of responsibilities between actors involved is an imperative, that is, beyond the public authorities, residents should become more responsible for their own flood resilience. However, residents' perspectives on their own and other's responsibility for adaptive action has not yet been explored extensively. In this contribution, we distinguish between four notions of responsibility in analysing the perspectives of residents regarding flood risk adaptation measures undertaken by public authorities, insurance companies and residents themselves. A qualitative study in England shows how residents perceive responsibilities for flood risk adaptation across the various notions and actors, including themselves. We found that residents have clear expectations and perceptions on how they think responsibility is divided among stakeholders and how they would like it to be. Additionally, the discourse on responsibility division in FRM raises questions and causes mismatches between the formal legal parameters and residents' perceptions. With the insights into residents' perceptions, opportunities arise to better inform and encourage them to take flood risk adaptation measures and thereby improve flood resilience. K E Y W O R D S flood risk adaptation, flood risk management, perceptions, residents, responsibility 1 | INTRODUCTION Floods are increasingly causing damage to private residential buildings. The approaches to protecting people and properties against floods have changed over the last century. Approaches to minimising floods have evolved over time 'from government to governance' (Penning-Rowsell & Johnson, 2015; Snel, Witte, et al., 2020) and the importance of residents in managing flood risk is increasingly recognised (Lawrence et al., 2014). This governance approach in flood risk management (FRM) has prompted a trend towards emphasising residents' responsibilities for managing their own risk and property rather than solely relying on large government
Household preference and financial commitment to flood insurance in South-East Queensland
Australian Economic Review, 2013
Many Queenslanders affected by the severe flood events in 2011 failed to recover their losses. Arrangements for flood insurance are under federal reviews in response to mounting public pressures. Against this backdrop, a household survey was conducted to solicit resident preference. The majority of residents interviewed favoured optional purchase of flood insurance. Non-insurance was associated with expectations for liberal assistance, indicating the possibility of ‘moral hazard’. Willingness to pay for flood insurance was related to social influence. The non-insured household would spend more if they expected positive responses from people around. Attempts to reduce non-insurance should address aspects of social influences.