A news article is being run on the BBC website and the news bulletins this morning about the worries over flood insurance for vulnerable areas.

Tens of thousands of people who were flooded in 2007 may find it impossible to get cover for their homes and businesses unless the government and insurers reach a new agreement.

Campaigners say the government needs to act quickly as guarantees on vulnerable homes are due to end in June 2013.

The Association of British Insurers argues the agreement was a temporary measure and has distorted the market.

It wants the government to offer more help.

To put it simply, the insurance industry committed to keep flood insurance affordable for at risk communities so long as the Scottish and UK government, local authorities and agencies make progress on flood protection and prevention. The real concern is not enough or slow progress is being made for the insurance industry to recommit to such arrangements in the future.

A spokesman for the Association of British Insurers, speaking on BBC Breakfast, confirmed more commitment from government was required and hinted at the need for a government  subsidy so at risk communities can be provided with affordable flood coverage.

The ABI and the Scottish Government compiled “A Joint Statement on the Provision of Flood Insurance” back in December 2008.

Freuchie, Falkland and the Newton of Falkland have all been recognised by SEPA as areas at risk of flooding.

The ABI Flood Insurance talk last week was well attended and was crowned a grand success by those who came along. Arthur Philp delivered an informative presentation,  thereafter providing comprehensive responses to our questions and comments. Everyone went away better equipped to deal with post flood event clean-up and reassured their future flood insurance needs will be dealt with in an affordable and reasonably simple manner. A video of the talk is shown below.

Freuchie Flood Action Group would like to express our gratitude to Arthur Philp of the ABI and Norwich Union for his time and effort putting together the presentation.

Thank you to everyone who came along and contributed valuable feedback and questions.

Once again we are indebted to the Lomond Hills Hotel for providing the venue. Thank you Ronnie.

Resources:

  Video of the talk, hosted on Blip.TV

 Presentation deck in PDF format

You will need Acrobat Reader, a free download from Adobe, to be able to view the presentation deck.

Technorati Tags: ABI, Arthur Philp, flood, flooding, insurance, Lomond Hills Hotel, Norwich Union

Just a little reminder of our Insurance Industry talk tonight with Arthur Philp of the ABI. All the details are here.

Technorati Tags: ABI, Arthur Philp, flooding, insurance

The Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Bill Stage 1 debate occurred yesterday in the Scottish Parliament with all party support. A video of the debate is available on the Scottish Parliament website, but be warned it last for about two hours! Likewise, a transcript of the debate is available from TheyWorkForYou.com.

The debate was opened by Richard Lochhead  MSP, Cabinet Secretary for the Minister of the Environment, with an interesting statement:

“This Bill represents the most comprehensive modernisation of flood risk management in Scotland for over 40 years. It is a co-ordinated approach which will deliver flood management at a catchment scale, allowing local authorities and others to take the best possible approach to managing flooding in their area.”

A very good summary up of what is needed by way of betterment in dealing with flood risk management and prevention and protection. 

Some interesting snippets from the Scottish Government press release:

The Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament on September 30, 2008. It will streamline and speed up the development and implementation of flood risk management measures, introduce a more sustainable and modern approach to flood risk management and create a more joined up and co-ordinated process to flood risk management throughout Scotland.

Specific measures in the Bill include:

• A framework for coordination and cooperation between all organisations involved in flood risk management
• Assessment of flood risk and preparation of flood risk management plans
• New responsibilities for SEPA, Scottish Water and local authority functions for flood risk management
• A revised, streamlined process for flood risk management measures
• New methods to enable stakeholders and the public to contribute to managing flood risk

The first and last bullet points are of great interest to flood affected communities as it enshrines in law the involvement of all stakeholders when look at flooding issues. In the past many flood victims and affected communities have felt disenfranchised from the processes and systems that deliver flood management improvements. The community of Freuchie has already been working on the approach suggested in the Bill with the setting up of Freuchie Flood Action Group (FFAG) that cooperates closely with Freuchie Community Council. Additionally, we are currently exploring ways to improve communications and relationships with Fife Council in the spirit of the Bill. FFAG also has many specialist advisors onboard to provide information and advice related to the flooding of Freuchie and flood prevention and protection. Least we forget, even top politicians have been engaged so that our experience can be fed back to government; we’re looking forward to Mike Russell MSP, Minister for the Environment, coming to see us.

Roseanna Cunningham MSP, Convenor of the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee, pointed out that there appeared to be a culture of hard solutions amongst existing professionals. The new Bill makes it a requirements that natural sustainable flood management techniques are considered for all flood alleviation schemes. However, local authorities are still able to pass over natural sustainable solutions in favour of hard engineer where it is shown to be appropriate. Freuchie appears to be a good case for a hybrid approach, utilising the best of the natural sustainable approach and hard engineering to protect the community.

Liam McArthur MSP, reflected on evidence given by Jim Moodie to the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee on the 10th December 2008:

“Jim Moodie from Fife Council, who made quite an impression on the committee, as I recall, referring to the lack of interim arrangements suggested that this was quote,

‘A concern because there is nothing in the Bill to say that councils have to do anything until the management plans are in place.’

I accept that it would be a foolish, if not to say a short lived council administration that would sit on its hands and do nothing in the face of a demonstrable flood risk in its area. Never the less, I hope the Minister will accept the need to clarify the position regarding interim arrangements.”

Credit should be given to Mr Moodie for identifying and highlighting potential issues with the Bill at a stage when the deficiency can be corrected.

He went on to touch upon funding, returning again to quote from Mr Moodie’s evidence,

“The lack of a clear funding mechanism will mean that many schemes will not be delivered at all because funding will be allocated to what councils consider to be other priorities. He added, rather courageously perhaps, that our budgets are defined by accountants and asset management people who are not directly affected by flood prevention measures or functions. Mr Moodie doubtless had his work cut out in making his peace with colleagues once back across the bridge that afternoon, but his candor did suggest that assurances from Ministers about flood funding may still fall upon deaf ears.”

Bravo to Mr Moodie for fighting the flood funding corner. It is vital to ensure funds for flooding don’t end up being spent on other more populist priorities by local authorities. There looks to be a case for the accountants and asset managers to be independently briefed on flooding and the long term effects it has on communities. They would certainly benefit from a presentation by Paul Hendy of the Scottish Flood Forum.

Mr Moodie’s oral evidence can be viewed online – it is approximately 33 minutes in on this video recorded at the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee Flood Bill evidence session on the 10th Dec 2008.

Further details and Stage 1 reports are available from the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Bill committee webpage. The response by the ABI is particularly encouraging. More videos are available to view from the other evidence sessions for stage 1 of the Bill.

The Scottish Government appear to be driving flooding in the right direction and should be praised for such an enlightened and world leading approach. A significant step is the suggested addition of the word “sustainable” on the face of the bill in stage 2, which demonstrates the focus on a sustainable flood management approach.

A final alarming statistic from the press release:

According to MET Office records, going back to 1914, the summers of 2007 and 2008 were the wettest consecutive summers on record for the East and West of Scotland.

Let’s hope 2009 sees this alarming news being turned around in our favour. Jim Mullen, Vice Chairman of FFAG, presented similar findings to a public meeting a few months back based on SEPA rainfall data.

Technorati Tags: ABI, Fife Council, flooding, Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Bill, Freuchie, Freuchie Community Council, Freuchie Flood Action Group, Jim Moodie, Rural Affairs and Environment Committee, Scottish Flood Forum, Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament, Scottish Water, SEPA

The next public meeting of Freuchie Flood Action Group is a presentation from Arthur Philp from the Association of British Insurers (ABI), during which we shall hear about the insurance industries perspective of flooding and how this may affect all residents of Freuchie and other flood affected communities.

Once again, we’re delighted to have secured such a high profile expert speaker to come along to present to flood survivors and other residents of Freuchie and beyond. 

Thanks go again to the Lomond Hills Hotel for providing the venue.

Date & Time
5th February 2009 at 7:00 for 7:15pm

Venue
Lomond Hills Hotel – Freuchie

Abstract
During this presentation, Arthur will explain the Statement of Principles for flood insurance, with the main aim at the meeting to cover – "What property owners need to do to help protect their property from future flooding and to help their insurer provide them with the best possible terms for future insurance."

After a short presentation Arthur will offer an opportunity to touch upon the presentation content and other flood and insurance matters of interest within a question and answer session. Arthur doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, but he is genuinely interested in hearing the problems from the audience’s perspective. This is an important area where the insurance industry recognises the need to understand problems better and ensure all concerned work towards providing better solutions.

The developments in the new Scottish Flooding Bill should be touched upon during the talk and Q&A session.

Speaker Biography
After graduating from Aberdeen University, in mathematics, Arthur Philp has spent virtually all of his career in insurance – initially within IT developing insurance administration systems, then in project management and for the last 20 years, in Underwriting Household Insurance.

Although employed by Norwich Union, he is currently on part-time secondment to the insurance industry trade body, the Association of British Insurers (ABI). This follows a seven month full time secondment as a member of a joint working group with Government on the review of the Statement of Principles for flood insurance. Current work involves completing negotiations on the Statement of Principles for flood insurance with the devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as continuing work on provision of flood risk data to insurers from the Environment Agency, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Northern Ireland Rivers Agency.

Within Norwich Union he is the Underwriting Development Manager for Household insurance, working within a department responsible for Underwriting Strategy. Arthur has been involved in considering the problems of insuring property against flood both within Norwich Union and with ABI since the early nineties when insurers had initial concerns about the increasing risk of coastal flooding in the South East of England due to climate change and, of course, significant river flooding in Perth (1993) and Glasgow (1994).

Arthur is a Chartered Insurer and has been working in the insurance industry for the past 35 years. He also represents the ABI in Scotland as a member of the Government’s Flooding Bill Advisory Group.

Technorati Tags: ABI, Arthur Philp, Fife, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Flood Action Group, insurance

The removal and replacement of the bridge at Green Tree Brae in Freuchie got a mention in both the Fife Herald and The Courier this week.

Our last blog post on the ABI – Scottish Government Insurance Agreement on flooding got a mention in today’s Courier.

Good to see Freuchie Flood Action Group and our campaign being kept in the press. We need to again express our gratitude at the continuing support of the journalists at both newspapers.

Technorati Tags: ABI, Fife, flood, flooding, Freuchie, Freuchie Flood Action Group, Scottish Goverment

Some good news for the flood survivors of Freuchie, and other areas of Fife and Scotland affected by flooding, came yesterday when the Scottish Government and the insurance industry reached a joint agreement that will give homes and businesses greater protection.

The Scottish Government and the Association of British Insurers (ABI) have agreed to work together to minimise the flood risks and to help people quicker when flooding occurs.

Read the full announcement here.

Editorial Comment:
This is a very welcome development as the recent withdrawal of the previous agreement between the UK government and the insurance industry could have resulted in major problems with obtaining affordable insurance in a flood risk area.

Additionally, this should improve the current situation where most flood survivors are traumatised by the flood event, but then face ongoing stress and frustration from dealing with the insurance industry and their service providers, more particularly the assessors, builders and project managers. This press release from the National Flood Forum covers this subject in  more detail.

It will also make for a controversial talking point in our forthcoming talk from the Association of British Insurers… more details of the talk coming soon.

We will be watching with interest to see how this translates into affordable policy renewals and the on the ground delivery of services from local authorities, the insurance industry and the service providers involved in the clear-up and reinstatement work that follows a flood event.

Technorati Tags: ABI, Association of British Insurers, Fife, flood, flooding, Freuchie, Scottish Government