Baroness Young, chief executive of the Environment Agency (EA), has played down insurers’ claims that the agency is not doing enough to share its data on flood mapping.
In an interview with Insurance Times, Young said that the EA, criticised for its management of flood defences, was working to help insurers price risk.
Young said: “We’re not keeping it from [insurers]. As soon as we have decent, reliable data the insurance industry is the first to have it.”
Simon Black, head of flood mapping at Norwich Union (NU) said that relevant stakeholders were working together closely but more details of the EA’s asset database, a detailed invent-ory of flood defences, were needed.
He said: “The asset database doesn’t incorporate all information the local EA offices have to hand.”
Although the EA has recently pro-vided NU with its updated 2006 Nat-ional Flood Risk Assessment data, Black said its resolution was insufficient. He said: “We like to look at individual houses. It doesn’t go to the level of detail we require.”
