within 250 metres of the property. Current insurance company say ‘no’, they won’t insure me.

Should I be worried about this, we’re talking about a little stretch of water that’s not even a stream.

Thanks. 🙂

Flood maps on the EA website might help you

I’ve had some insurance companies refuse to insure my house because it’s within 30 metres or so of a lake (which has never got anywhere near my house). I guessed they just apply some “close to water, computer says no” logic so moved on to an insurance co. which didn’t do that 🙂

Thanks folks. Good call on the EA website. Yes, I know these companies get a bit silly, was once refused for being several hundred metres from a stream and the property was considerably higher. Couldn’t imagine a wave being able to hit it!

We have a brook running under the house and we even made a claim for damage to the brook walls caused by a flood but because we don’t live in an EA flood risk area the insurance company don’t care.

As honeybadger suggests, EA flood map is a handy resource.

http://maps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/wiybyController?topic=floodmap&layerGroups=default&lang=_e&ep=map&scale=7&x=531500&y=181500

Should I be worried about this

Potentially, if it’s at a higher elevation to your home. I’d be asking neighbours about it after heavy rains.

I’ve had a few clients make some considerable claims following little ditches getting blocked by inconsiderate neighbours.

You can pm if you want, i deal with a few insurers who will look at properties in flood risk arrears.

Failing that, Aviva Direct have some very good flood mapping data and will likely have a good handle on the risk/good cover.

Is this your current property or somewhere new? The EA maps are updated every so often with new (improved) flood modelling, which can change the risk (up and down). As allthepies rightly pointed out, the insurance companies don’t want to get involved in the detail, they just have blanket policy based on the mapping which is paid for through the EA (SEPA in Scotland, NRW, NIEA).

If it is your current property, you’ll have to ring around insurance companies to see which ones will cover you. If it starts to get very pricey, you can get more information from your local EA office about the nature of the risk and the predicted flood levels and get someone with some experience involved, but that will cost! My parents are now in the ‘1 in 100 year’ event floodplain and just accept paying higher insurance premiums. This was due to revised modelling of the risk of flooding from reservoirs following the 2007 floods.

Thanks again, all helpful. Looking at the EA map shows areas that are definitely vulnerable but not convinced now that it’s anything to be overly concerned about. Yes there is some minimal risk but impossible to avoid really.

If it’s a property that you’re moving to, ask the neighbours/local pub/shop

IT’s something you can never be 100% about.

This happened to our home, we had the same empty stream. But a blockage in the drain and the insane rains a couple of Febs ago meant we had 3 weeks of this, lost 3 house sales and were very unhappy for a while.

99.9% of times the stream is completely dry, this time it flooded the whole village.

Try some non standard insurers – would have thought NFU would be clued up on it.

Better to pay more and be insured, than not at all. Couple of houses in our village got caught by a blocked drainage channel, then last year a ridiculous summer storm on top of bone dry ground saw that entire row hit by surface run off, one of them had no flood cover…

Of no help this but..

My mother bought an old lock keepers cottage in the fens near Fenny Drain (Chatteris end) and the survey pulled up the same statement.
You’d think a cottage sitting lower than the canals out that way would have a high probability of flooding at least once in 100 years wouldn’t you 😆

It did.

🙄

“shows areas that are definitely vulnerable but not convinced now that it’s anything to be overly concerned about”

Although attitudes like this are what gets you on the TV in 5 years time “we never thought it would happen to us” …..but i bet its cheap compared to similar properties not on a flood risk.

the flood levels are only getting adjusted higher.

How ever – there are things you can do . a neighbour down in the meander of the river atthe bottom of the road regularly floods – they have tanked the downstairs and put down tiles on the floors and walls to above flood level (along with alot of other stuff) that means when the floods subside all he has to do is mop out. It does mean that the couple times a year that it floods its all men to the floor and empty the ground floor of furnishings but it always gives indications of when its goingto flood – its never an instant flood like the high tide surge floods we had a few years back.

The EA flood map isn’t necessarily representative either, particularly for new build areas where the developers have had to add reservoirs and take flooding into account.

It shows my house as being in the middle of the river, but in reality it’s about 10 feet above the highest area of the flood plain, which floods as it should. Don’t recall any issues with insurance though.

I work for the EA, I worked a few shifts last year in villages that were spending their 2nd month under water. The streams were no more than 1-2m across.

How the watercourse is today, on a nice sunny day does not necessarily reflect how it will always be.

Flaperon – The modelled flood extents do not consider defences or threshold elevation data, insurance companies do have access to this data.

The ‘risk of flooding from surface water’ maps shown on the EA website were produced either last year or the year before.

As the website say, surface water flooding happens when rainwater does not drain away. It is not about your proximity to a nearby stream (small or otherwise).

This is one of the datasets used by the insurance companies.

I work for a company that produces flood maps for the EA/SEPA and also produces our own and sells them to the insurance industry.
As said above, surface water flood maps are generated by simulating rainfall on 3D surface models of the landscape. Generally depressions fill with ponded water until a low point is reached, the surface water will also generally follow an open channel where available. Where it gets tricky and what requires significant manual input and interpretation is including “cut lines” in the 3D surface to simulate culverts, bridges, underpasses etc. Your local stream may pass through one of these which hasn’t been included in the surface model and as a result the water will back up until another low point is reached.
You can always get a private Flood Risk Assessment done and submit it to the insurance company to (hopefully) prove the property is not at risk, depending on the complexity these may cost between £1-3k for a consultant to produce.
HTH

Our current house is at the top of a hill.

New house is within 300m of the river, 50m or so from the canal and is, according to the EA website the next lowest flood risk level up from “this’ll never flood”.

Called the home insurance to double check how much my premiums would go up by…. £10 a year.

re EA flood maps … always remember that despite the name “1 in 100” and “1 in 200” are not actually measurments or estimates of the frequency of flooding.

We used to have a house about 200ft above the upper Tees on the side of a hill. No streams anywhere close. Just run-off after a period of heavy rain was enough to nearly take us out, and flood the house next door.

Ask around (particularly among the older residents) before you discount the threat. Having said that, in most parts of the country, the most extreme rainfall in the last 50 years or so has come in the last five to 10 years.

The Environment Agency’s original map for river and sea flood risk shows very distinct and relatively large areas of increased risk next to the sea or rivers or floodplain, and properties are either clearly in the flood risk zone, close to it, or well outside it.

In contrast, the surface water flood map is quite different, with a large number of smallish areas shown at risk. Many roads are shown as being at risk but not the properties on those roads, probably simply because the road is a few inches lower than pavement and surroundings, and as a result the modelling indicates that there will be running or standing water in the road itself in the event of heavy rainfall.

Because the surface water map has only been available publically and to insurers since 2013, and because the information it contains is so different from the river and coastal map, most insurers are probably still struggling to get to grips with it. It sounds like that is the case for Cinnamon Girl, since whereas 250m might equate to relatively close proximity to an area at risk of river or sea flooding, it is likely to be more than adequate distance separation from an area at risk of surface water flooding.

Many insurers buy the flood map data from the Environment Agency or resellers to incorporate it into their own systems – if those systems use post code levels of precision (as opposed to geocode levels of precision), then situations like Flaperon’s can arise where a house well above the flood risk level is lumped together with other properties in that post code which are at risk.

In that situation and that of Cinnamon Girl, it really ought not to be necessary to get a specialist flood risk assessment done by a consultant (although the Environment Agency itself will provide more detailed technical reports than the information contained on its website, typically for a cost of around a couple of hundred pounds or less, which can be useful). I would like to think that it would be possible to speak to a more senior underwriter in the insurance company who is able to look at the map and other data and make a more informed decision. However, I suspect that may not be possible/practical with some insurers whose business model may be based on relying entirely on ‘expert computer systems’ to do all the underwriting, with no scope for the users to override the computer’s decision (which is how they aim to keep their costs and prices lower than competitors).

One other point is that the majority of UK insurers are members of the Association of British Insurers and are committed to complying with the ‘Statement of Principles’ and its successor agreed between the ABI and the Government on providing flood insurance to householders. I am not sufficiently familiar with document to comment definitively, but I suspect Cinnamon Girl’s insurer might be on very shakey ground in declining to give cover if her property is clearly outside the flood risk zone identified by the Environment Agency in the map.

Although attitudes like this are what gets you on the TV in 5 years time “we never thought it would happen to us” …..but i bet its cheap compared to similar properties not on a flood risk.

Mmmm, bit ott there me thinks. I’ve just been having a good look at the EA mapping and, as far as Dahn Sarf is concerned, there’s always going to be an element of risk unless you’ve mega bucks to spend. The risk does look very minimal in that it’s not near a river or coastline. Also interesting to see the other areas I’ve lived in and how they compared, worse in one case as well as much the same. Of course we don’t get as much rain as you lot up there. 😉

weeksy – that must have been horrible for you and it just goes to show that the unexpected can happen.

Thanks again for the input all, it’s been enlightening and informative. 🙂

It wasn’t the best I admit.

C-g ours was down south, near Newbury. The river is called the Pang and rarely does anything. It’s about 7 miles from the Thames and 60 from the coast.

Amazingly, we sold the house and moved, 50m away from that one.

slowster- thanks for an informative post. My experience is that with insurance companies it’s very much ‘computer says no’, they don’t even actually look at a detailed map and purely use a postcode.

Didn’t realise that it’s only recently surface water mapping has been available so, yes, could be early days for getting to grips with actual events.

weeksy – that was a brave move literally!

Flaperon – The modelled flood extents do not consider defences or threshold elevation data, insurance companies do have access to this data.

Interesring, thanks for the info.

16 years working for the EA in op’s delivery so if you flood someone like me would come out and see if we can do anything to help such as blockage in the watercourse, culverts, bridges and such.

Have seen loverly little quaint brooks turn into raging torrents and flood property.