Like deserters facing a firing squad, the insurance industry’s PR spokespeople took it like brave soldiers in today’s Daily Mail.
The story, Insurers hike flood victims\’ premiums by 500% and make them pay first £6,000 of claim | Mail Online, points out how flood victims have seen their renewal premium and excesses go up by astronomical figures and asks why oh why.
Of course the problem is that because everyone’s paved over their front gardens and the government won’t stump up the cash for some more sandbags so every year thousands of people suffer enormously as torrents of water rush into their lounge and destroy the place.
This is a lose lose situation for the insurance industry PR machine but it’s very interesting to see what tactic they adopt in meeting their maker. They can’t blame the government, because surely that can’t justify slapping on an extortionate £6000 deductible at renewal, and they can’t tell us about all the grateful homeowners who’se properties they did save from destruction because well, that would result in a headline like ‘insurer pays claim and fixes house’.
However, perhaps knowing the battle can never be won, ‘Honest’ Adrian Webb, of Esure gives it to us straight and is almost praised by the reporter for doing so; ”We are not an insurer for flood-risk postcodes. We have lobbied the government for nearly eight years to improve flood defences,” he says. “We cover flooding in areas where it is a genuine accident, not an accident waiting to happen because of nearby undefended water sources. Insurers do not cause floods, neither do they build flood defences.”
Ralph Savage
