Home insurers prepare for storm claims

11 March 2008

Insurers expecting influx of claims for storm damage

Householders affected by the recent storms in the UK are expected to file insurance claims adding up to hundreds of millions of pounds.

Wales and the West Country were hit by 80mph winds which looked set to cause damage to homes and cars. Storm damage is covered by home and motor insurance policies as standard.

According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), it is too early to estimate how much the damage will cost to repair and so they can only use past experience to guess that it is going to run into millions of pounds.

A spokesman for the ABI said that it cost £350m to fix all the damage caused by Hurricane Kyrill, which hit the UK in January 2007, and this week’s storm damage could be somewhere in the same region.

He added, however, that the insurance industry was prepared for such events saying that “probably the only surprise is that we haven’t had this kind of high winds and rain already this winter”.

Insurers were well prepared for this week’s storm because weather forecasters issued warnings about the impending storm several days before it hit. The ABI have said some of its members will have already begun contacting those policy holders living in the areas that were hit hardest.

“Insurers will be contacting customers and saying that they know they are in the eye of the storm, as it were, and offering them help with their claim.”

Andrew Lowe, head of home insurance for insurer Direct Line, said: “Representatives from our emergency home response team are already providing assistance to customers whose property may have been affected by today’s bad weather.

“Our priority will be to offer assistance and to provide help and advice on the steps that need to be taken to get the claims processed as quickly as possible,” he concluded.

Currently one in four households does not have home contents insurance. The ABI said that some of these may change their situations after the storms this week because, according to their spokesman, “the best advert for insurance is not an expensive advertising campaign but natural bad weather”.

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