Insurers should improve dialogue with the government and planners over the safety of new developments.

Visiting professor at the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre (BGHRC)David Crichton called for this increase in communication at the flooding seminar at Strategy 2002.

Crichton suggested that an increase in funding was not the only answer. "It no good asking the government for more money," he said. "Insurers should rather have a dialogue with planners and have meetings on a regular basis."

Crichton added that the government also needed to communicate with the public. "People are buying property not knowing that it is in the flood plain when the Environmental Agency (EA) accepted the development in the first place," he said.

Senior manager at Smith Stuart Reynolds Ivan Moss echoed the concern and said the simple solution would be to stop building on flood plains. But he said a debate raged around building on land with a previous use or 'brown field' or natural 'green field' sites.

"There is enough land for 920,000 houses to be built on brown field land but how many would then be on a flood plain?" he said.

"No one is asking the question."

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