Flood response planning

The start of the new working week brings rain for many, with rain warnings in force for some across England and Wales.

The Met Office has announced that an Amber weather warning is now in force, covering parts of central and southern England, including Oxford, Bath and Milton Keynes. The warning highlights potential flooding and damage for some buildings, with travel disruption also likely.

Flooding can have a devastating impact on your business.  Since commercial properties are twice as likely to be at risk from flooding compared to the average British property*, it is vital you are prepared in the event of a disaster.

Flooding is a significant risk to businesses and organisations.  A relatively small depth of flooding can cause exceptionally high losses, with a depth of flooding of around 30cm likely to cause significant/total loss to vehicles stored at ground level.

Flood is challenging, in so far as the measures which can be put in place to mitigate the risk are limited.  Transferring the risk is an option but insurers are increasingly cautious around flood risks due to significant losses in recent years, particularly the Boxing Day floods of 2015.  In February this year, Storm Franklin caused flooding in Yorkshire (North/South and West), Derbyshire and West Midlands.

Flooding is a risk all year round.  Floods have caused chaos in summer months, for example after several isolated days of intense rainfall across South-East England and Scotland in August 2021*, costing insurers many millions.  2007 is regarded as one of the worst years in recent times for flooding in the United Kingdom. Much of the flooding occurred during a period between June and July. The most affected region was England, especially the southern parts, although Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in the north of England, Wales (especially the south) Northern Ireland and Scotland (especially the Lowlands), were also badly affected**.

Insurers also have significant concerns around climate change and the impact this may have on flood losses with greater extremes of weather events being experienced.

Floods threaten businesses, yet in a survey by FloodFlash***, only 42% claimed to have business interruption insurance.

There are a number of ways to properly assess the risk, mitigate the risk and plan for a flooding event.

Help ensure your business is more flood resilient by considering:

Understanding and mitigating flood risk

Are you in a flood risk area?

The National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies identifies three types of flooding which are considered as having the potential to cause significant disruption in the UK.

• Coastal (where high tides and storm surges combine to cause the sea to flood inland)
• Rivers and streams, known as ‘fluvial flooding’ (where waterways overflow their banks into surrounding areas)
• Surface water (where rainfall overwhelms drainage systems). Surface water flooding is also particularly difficult to forecast with accuracy and can happen at very short notice

GOV.UK provides services to tell you the flood risk of area:

https://check-long-term-flood-risk.service.gov.uk/risk

https://flood-map-for-planning.service.gov.uk/

The information provided by the databases can be limited, but they will provide an overview of the flood risk, classifying this is High, Medium or Low, or by various flood zones 1, 2 and 3 with 3 being the higher risk.