Briefing: 2025 shows little sign that the tide will turn

By Jon Guy

The new year has arrived – yet some would say that the same old problems for insurers and their policyholders have infiltrated 2025.

Heavy snow across much of the UK in the second week of January quickly turned to rain, leading to widespread flooding.

Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside, Lancashire and Yorkshire have been badly hit, with the highest river levels on record being reached on the Mersey in Stockport and south Manchester.

Minister for water and flooding Emma Hardy said: “I have met with officials from the Environment Agency and members of Parliament to ensure that impacted communities are receiving the necessary support and I want to express my heartfelt thanks for the vital work that the Environment Agency and emergency services are doing to keep people safe.”

In a quote which may well be music to the ears of insurers, Hardy added: “The government is working at pace to accelerate the building of flood defences through our new Floods Resilience Taskforce, so we can continue to protect people and their homes.”

She noted that the lessons learned from these most recent floods will be fed directly into the newly formed taskforce – which was established in September 2024 – to speed up the development of flood defences and bolster the nation’s resilience to extreme weather.

For Hardy, the taskforce successfully brings the government together with representatives from the Met Office, local resilience forums, mayoral offices, emergency responders and the National Farmers Union of England and Wales, “among others”.

Conflicting aims?

The next meeting of this flood focused taskforce will take place in the coming weeks.

It is scheduled to discuss the longer-term oversight of wider flood resilience strategy and investment, as well as share any rapid learnings or quick wins on the response to major flooding.

The taskforce estimated that there are 5.5 million properties in England at risk from flooding and the recent bad weather has only exacerbated this threat.

However, looming over the good intentions and broad promises from the taskforce is the small matter of a separate determination by the government to also build 1.5 million new homes.

With widespread predictions that the UK’s coastline will look significantly different in the next five decades thanks to climate change, the land on which these 1.5 million homes will be built is – in fact – in short supply and may well be flood prone.

Cementing relationships

What is disappointing when looking at the constituent parts of the taskforce is that participating insurers are relegated to being described as “others” by the government, rather than heralded like the involvement of the aforementioned organisations and bodies.

The relationship between the insurance industry and governmental parties has always been fractious over the issue of spending on flood resilience and 2025 is likely to test this sore point once again.