This year saw the Met Office report England’s wettest 18 months on record, with the current outlook suggesting autumn is likely to be wetter than usual. With the government pointing to 5.5 million properties in England alone being vulnerable to flood risk, the chance of increased rainfall underscores the urgent need to enhance your flood risk management and review the steps you can take to both protect your business and bounce back better if you’re unable to avoid flooding.
5.5 million properties in England alone being vulnerable to flood risk
To help you mitigate the potential damage and obtain the right insurance coverage, below we look at proactive strategies and practical measures in the face of both river and surface water flooding.
We also explore how you can prepare if you can’t reduce your flood risk any further, assess how far your insurance is fit-for-purpose and suggest some additional insurance options.
The first steps to get ahead of your flood risks are:
Step 1 – Check if your property or business is at risk of flooding by visiting the Environment Agency’s webpage to check your long-term flood risk, carrying out more detailed assessments if you’re deemed at risk. You can contact the local Environment Agency office for rivers and coastal risks information or your lead local flood authority for surface water flooding insight.
Step 2 – Register for free flood warning, which provides alerts of river or coastal flooding via texts, calls or emails to designated individuals (noting that this service doesn’t warn of surface water flooding).
Step 3 – Design a flood plan clearly outlining the necessary actions before, during and after a flood, detailing the specific steps to safeguard people, property and critical infrastructure. You should develop, test and exercise your flood plan with the same attention to detail as your fire safety plan, considering the following:
By adhering to a well-designed and tested flood plan, you can significantly mitigate the risk of damage. Taking proactive measures won’t only protect your assets and business but also help you secure more favourable insurance terms.
Business continuity and incident management plans are essential to effectively respond to and recover from flooding events and can help you minimise disruption to operations.
During a flood, a well-developed incident management response plan can help to quickly and effectively safeguard your infrastructure, maintain critical operations and manage communications among all interested parties.
Post-flood, your focus will shift to recovery and resuming full operations. Your business continuity plan should detail the recovery strategies developed by the business for each of the five main loss types: loss of premises, people, equipment, IT applications and suppliers. With predefined recovery strategies, you can expect to reduce downtime, manage financial impact and ensure a swifter return to business as usual.
Your property damage and business interruption insurance policies should provide coverage for the peril of a flood. However, you should check the following to make sure you have the coverage the business needs and expects:
As the name suggests, insurance extensions can support you in reinstating property damaged by flooding and preventing reoccurring losses in the future by offering certain enhancements to standard policy coverage.
Meanwhile, parametric insurance can complement traditional insurance by covering gaps left by traditional policies, perhaps where certain types of risk are not covered, or where higher excesses or lower limits apply.
The above options, together with robust incident management and business continuity plans, not only can help you manage the immediate effects of a flood but also facilitate a structured recovery process.
To find a smarter way to mitigate and manage your organisation’s flood exposure, get in touch with our industry specialists.
