John Stevenson MP has welcomed Flood Re’s new initiative “build back better”, which seeks to help claimants gain additional funding to repair their property to a standard that is above and beyond the original damage. Under these new proposals, Flood Re also aims to reward homeowners who proactively install flood resilience measures to their property, by offering them discounted premiums on their home insurance policies.
Flood Re is a joint initiative between the UK government and insurers, which seeks to both help home owners after they have been flooded and to reward householders who proactively put precautionary measures in place, to prevent future flooding. Flood Re has already benefitted nearly a quarter of a million UK properties, since its launch 3 years ago. These new recommendations will see hundreds of thousands of more people paying lower flood insurance and it will see the costs of dealing with future flooding decrease.
Mr Stevenson said: “Carlisle was hit by severe flooding in 2005 and 2015, therefore these new proposals will have a significant impact on our area. One in six people in England are living in a property that is at risk of flooding. That is why this Government has already invested £2.6 billion over a 6-year period, to better protect 300,000 homes that are at risk of flooding. This is in addition to the Government investing £1 billion by 2020, to maintain existing flood defences”.