Confronting flood risk: implications for insurance and risk transfer

The UK floods in late 2000 reinforced an emerging awareness which questioned the long-term sustainability of an exclusive reliance on hard-engineered flood defences to protect the UK population against increased flood risk. The debate has subsequently focused on a broader interpretation of the risks associated with flooding. This paper explores the notion that, although social and technical issues are already being integrated to understand and manage flood, practitioners are now realising the importance of accommodating public hazard understanding and perception of risk into their management models, and there remains a need to fit such ideas to the insurance-based system of flood management in the UK.