Majority of British homeowners don’t check for flood risk: survey

Flood risk assessment firm Ambiental Technical Solutions Ltd. announced Thursday the results of a survey of British homeowners, reporting that 72% of respondents do not check for flood risk when they buy a new house.

In a press release, Ambiental said 23% of respondents said they have no home insurance to protect them from flooding. The survey, conducted last August, was of 600 homeowners in England and Scotland.

Read more: U.K. flood losses reach five year high after heavy rain in November

Ambiental operates RiskCentral, a service launched this year and designed to help buyers assess properties in Britain.

More than half of the respondents (54%) said they had not become more concerned about flood risk, despite severe flooding this year, Ambiental managing director Dr. Justin Butler stated in the release.

“A key reason for this may be lack of understanding of the risk of surface water flooding,” he stated.

“Of those currently insured, 41% reported that the cost of insurance had increased which suggests that the number of homeowners with no home insurance may well increase in the future, placing more people at risk,” Ambiental stated, while 63% said they would only prioritize flood risk if they were alerted by a surveyor.

“This is a worrying statistic as surveyors are not specifically tasked with investigating flood risk,” the firm stated.

With RiskCentral, Ambiental used terrain data in Britain in conjunction with computer models to analyze water flow around individual buildings. Customers can access a report consisting of flood maps and data.