Heavy floods that hit northern England on Friday are likely to cause far less damage than those which struck the country two years ago and left the insurance industry with a 3 billion-pound ($5 billion) bill, analysts said.
The latest incident has so far affected only 1,000 properties, compared with 55,000 in the summer of 2007, and the insurance hit is likely to be correspondingly lower, U.S. risk-modelling company RMS said.
“The damage is likely to be far lower than in 2007,” said RMS senior product manager Elizabeth Crouchman.
A spokesman for the Association of British Industry also said the floods appeared less destructive than in 2007 but the ABI was monitoring developments amid forecasts of continued rainfall.
“At the moment I don’t think we’re looking at anything like that level of damage,” he said.
A reliable estimate of the flood damage costs is likely to take several days, the spokesman said, adding that claims are typically in the order of 20,000 to 40,000 pounds for each affected property.
With Reuters
