FLOOD RESILIENCE AND RESISTANCE – CUSTOMER
FACTSHEET
Prepared jointly by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) .National Flood Forum
(NFF) and Flood Protection Association (FPA)
Why should you consider flood resilience?
Repairing a property that has been flooded offers an opportunity to minimise
the damage and disruption that could be caused by a flood in the future and
also reduce the chance of another flood occurring.
This factsheet provides consumers who have been flooded or are likely to be
affected by flooding with a guide to flood resilience and improving flood
protection in your home. Following a flood in your home it is important that you
speak to your insurer (or appointed loss adjuster) very early in the repair
process to discuss your options for flood resilience or resistance. Your insurer
will be able to outline the next steps if you wish to explore flood resilient repair,
and any cost implications (including possible savings).
There are two main approaches:

Flood resilience – reduces damage caused by any water that gets inside
the property

Flood resistance – minimises the amount of water that gets inside the
property
There is a growing range of simple products for keeping floodwater out of your
home. During more prolonged periods of flooding, water could still enter
through the floors and walls. In these cases, making the inside of your home
resilient to floodwater will limit damage costs and reduce the amount of time
you have to be away from your home or business. There are also systems now
available which can provide comprehensive solutions to prevent flood water, in
a prolonged flood, from entering your property.
Both techniques could help you to keep your insurance cover, and may even
influence future premiums charged or terms applied.
Discuss
options
with
insurer
Assess
the flood
risk
Consult a surveyor
to ascertain the most
suitable option for
flood resilience or
resistance
1
Further discussions
with insurer or
appointed loss
adjuster, including
cost implications
Agree
course of
action with
insurer
What are the benefits?
Flood-resilient repair can be combined with a range of flood-protection products to
limit:
(1) the amount of water that enters your home next time it floods
(2) the costs to repair any damage, and
(3) the amount of time you will have to remain out of your home while the
damage is repaired.
In the long term, adopting such measures could make it easier for an insurer to
continue to provide cover to your home if you are living in a high flood-risk area.
There may even be an effect on the terms of your insurance if a comprehensive
course of flood resilience and protection is undertaken, and there is a measurable
impact on your flood risk.
Who pays for any additional costs of resilience or resistance?
ABI members will work with customers who wish to do so to repairing their
home to a flood-resilient standard following damage. If the cost is substantially
greater than standard repair (like-for-like), then insurers will only provide funds
to cover the standard repair.
However there are now some good options for covering any extra work that
you might want to carry out to make your home or business premises more
flood resilient. The Council for Mortgage Lenders has said that many of their
leading members would be willing to consider extending loans to cover the
additional costs of repairs provided the homeowner has sufficient equity in their
property. Alternatively, funding resilient repairs yourself could prove a sound
investment for the future if your property suffers from repeated flooding.
In the future in England, it may be possible to get financial support from the
Government, who are looking into the possibility of offering financial support for
pilot studies to install flood-resilient and flood-resistant measures in appropriate
properties. The Welsh Assembly Government has already established a pilot
grant-scheme for such measures.
When should you consider flood-resilient repairs and floodresistant measures?
The chance of flooding to your home and the potential scale of damage will
both be key factors in deciding the type of flood-resilient repair that is most
appropriate. It may be worth undertaking a flood risk assessment for the
property to ascertain the level of flood-resilient repair that is appropriate (see
“What to do next” section).
If your home is at significant risk of flooding (greater than 1.3% annual
probability or 1-in-75 years chance), it might be worth repairing your home after
2
a flood with a comprehensive set of flood-resilient measures. All properties
that have been flooded could benefit from some degree of flood-resilient repair.
Some resilient techniques may be an appropriate way to repair a range of
flooded properties and do not cost substantially more than standard repair
(like-for-like).
What types of flood-resilient repair are most effective?
If your home is vulnerable to repeated flooding, making the inside resilient to
floodwater will limit distress to you and your family, and the damage and
disruption caused next time it floods, as well as substantially reducing the
amount of time you are out of your home during repair. Water-proofing the
inside of your home will reduce the damage caused to walls, floors and fixtures
by water. The process may also involve re-organising your home so that both
valuable and functional items (including service meters and your boiler) are
above the likely high-water level of a future flood.
Some flood-resilient measures do not cost much more than standard repairs,
and could be used for the repair of all properties that have been flooded, for
example moving services (electrics, boilers, and service-meters) well above
likely flood level. This approach will typically cost less than £1,000 extra for the
repair, but could be a valuable investment given the future savings. Other
measures are more costly, but will often pay for themselves after a single flood,
i.e. the extra cost is more than offset by the damage costs saved after the next
flood. These include:

Replacing timber floors with solid concrete and using tiles and a waterproof membrane to prevent water penetration into the concrete

Replacing chipboard kitchen and bathroom units with plastic equivalents
(where these are appropriate and cost-effective)

Replacing gypsum plaster with more water-resistant material, such as
lime plaster or cement/sand render

Installing water-resistant alternatives to doors and window-frames

Installing non-return valves into drainage pipes at an appropriate point to
prevent sewage backing up into the house
Carrying out this work will mean that the services can be maintained, and your
home can be cleaned, dried, and re-occupied quicker, reducing disruption to
your life or business. Installing the full suite of measures could add up to
£15,000 to the cost of repair, but could save at least £12,000 in each
subsequent flood.
What about flood protection products?
You may also like to consider installing products that keep water out of your
home, at least for some time. Some have been awarded the British Standards
Institute “Kitemark”, and have already proven to be effective in actual flood
3
situations. The most common individual property-level products include doorguards, airbrick covers, and building “skirt systems” that can effectively isolate
the whole property from the floodwater. They are usually limited in the height
they can protect to based on the structural qualities of the building.
Typically costs of property-level flood-protection can range from £2,000 £6,000 to deal with flash-floods to £20,000 - £40,000 to deal with prolonged
flooding on larger individual properties. Indications from the limited studies
currently available have shown that effective use of such products could
reduce the scale of flood damage and disruption by as much as 80%.
Further details on the most appropriate measures for your home are available
from the National Flood Forum, the Flood Protection Association and the
Environment Agency (contact details at end).
What to do next?
Flood resilient measures and protection products are most appropriate if your
home is at significant flood risk and where the area is unlikely to qualify for a
flood defence scheme. You should ask your loss adjuster to outline the options
available to you and any potential costs. You should discuss the implications
on your future insurance premium/excess directly with your insurer.
Before undertaking major renovations, it is worth getting advice from a
specialist flood surveyor (contact Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors or the
Flood Protection Association), who could undertake a comprehensive flood risk
assessment and recommend an appropriate set of measures for the property.
Such an assessment would take into account the type of flooding that occurs in
the area, local topography and geology, and property construction type.
The Flood Protection Association has recently developed a service which is
professionally indemnified, to undertake flood risk assessments and design
appropriate solutions. This service aims to provide a cost effective protection
solution to deal with properties at significant risk of flooding to reduce risk to
more acceptable levels at which insurance could be obtained.
Further information
Contacts
Association of British Insurers
British Damage Management
Association
British Standards Institution
Telephone
Website
020 7600 3333 www.abi.org.uk
07000 843 2362 www.bdma.org.uk
Useful publications
Flood Resilient Homes
020 8996 9000
PAS 1188 for flood
protection products
www.bsi-global.com
Building Research Establishment
01923 664000
Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters 020 7337 9960
CIRIA
020 7549 3300
www.bre.co.uk
www.cila.co.uk
www.ciria.org
Council of Mortgage Lenders
www.cml.org.uk
020 7437 0075
4
Standards for the
Repair of Buildings
Following Flooding
Environment Agency/CIRIA
0845 988 1188
www.environmentagency.gov.uk
Flood Protection Association
0870 2422340
Institute of Structural Engineers
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
Royal Institution of Chartered
Surveyors
Scottish Environment Protection
Agency
The National Flood Forum
020 7235 4535
0870 1226 236
0870 333 1600
www.floodprotectionassociation.
org
www.istructe.org.uk
www.odpm.gov.uk
Preparing for floods
www.rics.org
0845 988 1188
www.sepa.org.uk
01299 403055
www.floodforum.org.uk
5
Damage Limitation
Guide
Flood Products