Should the government help fund insurance claims from householders in high risk flood areas?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2238561/UK-floods-More-200-000-households-high-risk-flood-areas-uninsurable.html

We have all seen the horrific circumstances some householders find themselves in during all these repeating floods.

Should the Government and the rest of Insurance customers help by providing an emergency fund to help them out?

/// To cover floods such as this one, the Government is being asked by the UK's biggest insurers to provide an overdraft to cover exceptional levels of claims from next summer. ///

/// In return insurers say they will charge homes in lower-risk areas an extra £10 per year and put all the cash in a fund for emergencies. ///

/// Any extra money they need would be provided by the Government, which they plan to pay back over several years. ///

Or better still should the insurance industry be nationalised?

[DTCwordfan]

I agree with you, Eddie, as the population grows and builders are forced to construct on susceptible flood plains.

Why not use the "government" insurance money to go into encouraging regeneration of inner town environments (given that most of them were built in safer areas - environmentally) or the use of former brown land, and, while I am at it, the use of unoccupied houses for those who need to rent. I think there should be a max time of landlord non-occupancy and then the landlord loses rights ( or returns) from his her property.

[youngmafbog]

No they should not.

It has long been known if you live on a flood plain you are asking for it, why do people think they are called flood plains?

People buy houses because it is nicer to live by a river and fields instead of in a town like I put up with, but I should I fund their 'nice' views when I chose the sensible town instead of the nice river views (the choice I had to make last time we moved).

[anotheoldgit]

Perhaps some caring overseas nation will send money to help out the poor flooded people of Britain?

[pdq1]

There is a simple solution when building on flood plains and that is to build the houses on stilts. The ground floor can always be used as the car port.

[EDDIE51]

If you click on the link I posted yesterday and zoom to the 1/ 2,500.000 level you will see that around 50% of the land south of a line between Hereford and Ipswich is on a flood plain. There must be tens of millions of people who live in the areas . I would take a bet that 95% of them have no idea they are at risk. The way things stand at the moment the insurance companys will stop cover on their homes next year.