Britons face insurance ‘crisis’ as U.K.’s government trims flood defence
By Ed Ballard
19 August 2011 Emma Summerfield returned home on a rainy November evening in 2009 to find her vacuum cleaner afloat on a rising tide in her cellar. Hours later, her 18th century mill-house in Cumbria, northern England, was six feet deep in water. When the water receded, it left rooms wrecked, walls destroyed, and the sewage of four nearby cottages everywhere. “It’s just a house, but we’d put our heart and soul into it,” Summerfield said in a telephone interview. “Trying to get the house back together was absolute hell.” After an insurance payout of about 90,000 pounds ($145,764) from Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS)’s Direct Line unit, Summerfield, 36, was back in her home seven months later. Now, because insurers are reassessing the viability of flood insurance, thousands of future victims may not be so fortunate. Direct Line and Aviva Plc (AV/) are among British insurers threatening to tear up an agreement with the government that commits them to cover high-risk properties, even after claims rose threefold to 4.5 billion pounds in the last decade, because the U.K. is cutting spending on flood defenses. Smaller insurers not party to the so-called Statement of Principles are also cherry-picking low-risk homes and undercutting rivals, according to Aviva’s head of claims, Dominic Clayden. […] Britain’s coalition government is engaged in the biggest spending cuts since World War II to cut the country’s record budget deficit. It will reduce spending on flood defense to about 2.1 billion pounds over the next four years, from 2.36 billion pounds over the last four years, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Government projects range from the construction of concrete and metal barriers, to building pumping stations and replanting forests in floodplains. One plan to build a 150 million-pound barrier to protect the city of Leeds, England from the River Aire, is now unlikely to be fully funded by the government, according to the U.K.’s Environment Agency. That means “we may not be able to provide the same scale of defenses as originally planned,” the EA said. […] The frequency and severity of floods hitting Britain is increasing because of climate change, which has led to fiercer rainstorms, increased river flows, and higher storm surges, according to the Environment Agency. More than five million U.K. households are judged to be at moderate or significant risk of flooding, according to the agency. “This is a looming crisis,” said Jamie Reed, a lawmaker for Cumbria for the opposition Labour Party in an e-mailed statement. “Massive flood defense cuts have completely distorted the insurance market for homeowners and businesses. This could leave whole swathes of the country uninsurable and thousands of properties unmortgageable.” […]
Britons Face Insurance ‘Crisis’ as U.K.’s Government Trims Flood Defence
Add it to the collection of 'things wrong.' In this case, there is a body of knowledge which works to make some sense of what's being done in a manner of directed strategy. Opit's LinkFest! at Blogspot has a listing in the Topical Index called 'Water – Wealth and Power'.
It started as a post in My Opera – the link is listed – to a collection/post called 'End of an Era' where I reflect on Hydraulic Warfare.
Unless you are willing to concede to class warfare – even the wild Spacewars/Chemtrails ideas – the historical relevance to the upper class cutting the plebes looses to their destruction will not seem sensible.