The ABI’s director general Stephen Haddrill summed up the situation neatly this week when he stated that: “This summer’s devastating floods highlight the urgent need for a long-term strategy based around more investment, national coordination and better land use planning.” His comments come as the ABI launched a new report calling for a 25-year strategy to manage Britain’s growing flood risk, which should be accompanied by tighter planning controls.
But how has the government and its Whitehall colleagues responded so far to the insurance industry’s response to the summer crisis? Well perhaps not in the spirit of collaboration that the ABI may have expected. It is understood that the ABI was a little more than disappointed when certain government departments, faced with a baying media pack calling for ministers to act, briefed to certain sections of the media that insurers “must do more” to aid and manage the summer flooding crisis. When the truth was that the industry was at full strength and doing a fantastic job to manage the situation.
The chief executives of many large insurers, loss adjusters and industry leaders were at the time touring the country inspecting the sites and pulling together emergency teams to manage the crisis, so you can understand that it was perhaps more than a little galling to hear negative messages emanating from Westminster. “Without such a professional and urgent approach from the insurance industry the country would have been in pretty bad shape and the ministers on the front line would have faced the wrath of an even angrier public,” one chief executive says damningly. But what thanks did the industry get for its effort? For sure, there was an expectation that insurers must work hard to bail out the areas worst hit. ‘It’s our job to do it’ explains the chief executive. “But there was an expectation too that the government should have stood shoulder to shoulder with the industry to manage the problems and heap praise on a job well done,” he adds. “But it never really came”.
Of course there will be individual cases where areas and businesses have received a raw deal and this has been epitomised by recent attacks on the ABI by former Home Secretary and Sheffield MP David Blunkett.
But now is the time for the lessons from the situation to be learnt and a good start for the government would be to listen to the recommendations in the ABI’s document released this week.
A single national body responsible for flood management strategy is exactly what the country needs to handle problems of the future. And it would unite the country’s approach to future problems too. As Haddrill adds: “Insurers want to continue to provide flood insurance. The right decisions from the government will ensure that flood insurance remains widely available and affordable in the UK.” So perhaps if the government will not put its hand in its pocket to spend more on flood defences it could at least sit down with the industry and support the good work that is going on.
