UKC

Im currently looking to move house and one of the top contenders is lovely and has a brook running along the end of the garden. Not massive, just big enough for a healthy population of minnows. There are plenty of other houses backed onto the brook as well. So just wondering if anyone has experience of home insurance near a waterway and whether it sends premiums sky high?

In reply to the sheep:

I think that nowadays the insurance agencies use the Environment Agency's "flood map", so check to see whether it is shown as flood-prone on that.

Maybe this link: http://maps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/wiybyController?x=357683.0&...

In reply to the sheep:

If it is on a flood plain then most standard insurers stick the premium up to an eye-watering level.

We are on a flood pain and at risk from a 1 in 100 year sea flood and yet with specialist insurers only came a couple of hundred higher than telling a high street insurer that we weren't' on a flood plain. May be worth a look.

http://www.culpeck.co.uk/specialist-home-insurance/

In reply to the sheep:

As per Coel's answer plus many insurers will ask if you have flowing water withing a certain distance of the house. Many will refuse to insure point blank if there is but others seem not to mind; it's all a bit odd. Had to go through similar process myself recently (house quite high on a hill and no way it will flood in that sense but rivers lower down and the odd brook mean some insurers wouldn't go near it). Phone around is my suggestion.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Well that is news to me that my house is in a flood zone!

In reply to the sheep:

Frankly it's bad news and it's only going to get worse. I've lived in my current house (OK it's an old watermill) for ten years and the natural beck from which water was channelled to power the mill is actually about 50yards away but it seems that every year it gets not only more expensive to insure but also harder to find companies that will even consider it.

As has been said, insurers use the flood risk map but certainly the map for this area has changed in the time I've lived here - and, needless to say, not for the better. Partly that can happen just from people getting more cautious but also developments upstream, over which you have no control, can affect the situation too.