Biba Recommends Flood Defences for Homes

Boosting a property's domestic flood defences can lead to big reductions in home insurance premiums, new analysis from the British Insurance Brokers' Association (Biba) shows.

The organisation advised that homes located on flood plains which currently struggle to secure any kind of home insurance policy at all can also get cover by installing the domestic defences.

Biba's comments follow the publication of Sir Michael Pitt's investigation into flood preparations in the UK last month, which reported that "urgent" upgrades were needed in order to properly counteract the threat of extreme weather. The report itself was commissioned in the wake of the floods which hit central and southern England last June and July, which cost the insurance industry around £3 billion in customers' claims.

Graeme Trudgill, technical and corporate affairs executive at BIBA, said: "We have a scheme that our brokers sell for people in those flood prone areas and if [flood-prone homes] do fit…defences then it means that they can get insurance and...if there are no claims after a couple of years their excess will be very low and the premiums should be very fair as well."

He added: "You will be helping yourself in the long-term [by fitting defences] but make sure you work with your broker to do that."