The British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) has called on the government to act on several of its proposals that aim to improve flood resilience among businesses and properties.
The industry body issued demands after the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published a property and flood resilience action plan, which seeks to promote and facilitate better uptake of resilience measures for properties at high risk of flood.
As part of a task group that provided input to the action plan, BIBA urged the government to ring-fence the additional £200 million revenues per year generated from the recent increase in Insurance Premium Tax for spending on flood defences.
The group also wants the government to roll out a wider system of grants to small businesses to enable them to make property level flood resilience measures.
According to a research by BIBA, 67% of brokers reported it would be either a little easier or much easier to place the insurance risk if their clients could utilise this grant.
The industry body’s demands also include a review of building regulations and legislative changes to provide greater protection to property owners.
Grants should also be available from a single central government source and be paid directly to an insurer who can make resilient repairs quickly, BIBA said.
“At BIBA, we strongly encourage small businesses to consider resilient measures both before and after a flood,” said Graeme Trudgill, the association’s executive director.
“Our own research earlier this year revealed that that this is by far the most useful investment a small business at risk of flood can make that is recognised by an insurer when seeking property insurance,” he added.
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