JBA Risk Management has released its new UK Flood Model for insurers.
As part of its launch, the firm said that it had done a new analysis that suggested that a quarter of UK properties were at risk of flooding. It estimated that the cost of this would be £527m to UK residential properties, rising to £1.9bn to those without flood defences
According to the company, its new UK Flood Model shows that flood defences could reduce losses by an estimated 360% across river, surface water, and coastal flooding, with the latter up to 1300% higher without coastal flood defences.
It also said that losses from river flood are reduced by an estimated 295% from river flood defences. The data also shows that property level protection has the potential to make a huge difference, raising individual property defences for all residential properties in the UK could potentially reduce losses by half.
Nikki Pilgrim, technical director at JBA Risk Management, said: “The data, and recent flood events around the world, are a clear warning that flood remains a pervasive risk that must be taken seriously. Our new UK Flood Model’s enhanced functionality enables the insurance market to fully understand their flood exposure – users can easily, and quickly, undertake ‘what if’ investigations based on their own needs, see the impacts on their losses, and fully understand individual and portfolio risk profiles.”
The UK Flood Model is underpinned by the Oasis Loss Modelling Framework, ensuring it is accessible on multiple platforms including Oasis, Nasdaq Risk Modelling for Catastrophes, and ELEMENTS from Aon’s Impact Forecasting team. The model can also be installed in-house or delivered as a bespoke portfolio analysis service by JBA’s flood experts.
The largest estimated annual average losses for residential properties are seen in the Hull postcode area (6% of total estimated UK losses) followed by Bristol, Glasgow, Twickenham, and Slough. Other high-loss postcode districts occur in and around the Thames.
JBA Risk Management’s analysis echoes that of CRESTA, which earlier this month said that the July flooding across Europe had been the most-expensive international catastrophe event last year, costing insurers $12bn. SiriusPoint, meanwhile, expected the same flooding to dent its own Q3 results by up to $100m.
