Blog by Adam Clarke

Blog by Adam Clarke | Chief Underwriting Officer and Executive Champion for ESG at Ageas Insurance.

It takes an average insurer to look the difficult truth of climate change in the eye.

It takes an exceptional insurer to change its approach because of it.

I’m proud that Ageas isn’t just an average insurer. We’re taking a completely different approach to flood claims, in light of the startling fact that 5.2million homes and businesses are currently at risk of flooding.

From June 1, Ageas will become one of the first insurers in the UK to offer a new scheme which will help protect flood victims from further devastation.

We have signed up to Flood Re’s Build Back Better scheme, which offers homeowners the opportunity to have flood resistance and resilience measures installed by their insurer if their home is damaged by flooding.

Instead of simply fixing the damage, we will help to fund and install measures for qualifying homeowners which can reduce the impact should the worst happen again.

These measures could include flood barriers, self-closing airbricks or moving plug sockets higher up walls so they’re less likely to be submerged by flood water.

It’s designed to help some of the people who are most at risk from flooding across the UK and it’ll be available to our broker customers as long as they have buildings insurance with us and meet the qualifying criteria*.

To some, the scheme may seem a complete breakaway from what the industry’s traditionally set out to do – get customers back to the way they were before the insured event. Building Back Better means taking things one step further than we ever have before and improves a customer’s home by making it more flood resilient.

Sure, that claim might cost a little more, but the difficult truth is that flooding is likely to become more and more frequent and it’s our duty to start thinking about doing things a bit differently to protect our customers.

We know from speaking to homeowners just how devastating it can be when your home is flooded. It’s clear to us that if we can take steps to reduce the damage flooding would cause if it happened again, we should.

Brokers who sell Ageas policies can be proud to tell their customers that from June 1, this scheme will be available.

While we hope no-one will have cause to use it, the difficult truth is that some will. And when they do we’re proud to be there as one of the first insurers in the UK offering this help.

* Ageas is offering Build Back Better to any new or existing buildings insurance customer from June 1 whose insured property is their primary residence, has been flooded by coastal, river or flash flooding and where the claim is expected to cost over £10,000. The property also needs to be located in a high-risk flood area or have suffered previous flooding at some point.