Flooding: The Road to Resilience
On Tuesday 18 November, Watertight was proud to sponsor Flooding: The Road to Resilience, a one-day seminar in York that brought together leaders from across the flood risk, insurance and resilience sectors.
With many communities across the country still feeling the impacts of Storm Claudia, the event could not have been more timely.
Chaired by Ant Gould, the agenda set out to explore how insurers, local authorities, resilience specialists and community organisations can work together to build a more flood-resilient nation. What followed was a day full of collaboration, insights and practical actions.
Setting the Scene: Flood Risk, Climate Impacts and the Scale of the Challenge
The day opened with updates from Flood Re, CIWEM and City of York Council, outlining the current flood risk landscape, the increasing impacts of climate change and York’s own journey in strengthening local resilience. These sessions all demonstrated the need of more joined-up action across agencies and sectors.
Insurance, Innovation and the Future of Flood Recovery
Speakers from Flood Re, Sedgwick, and CelsiusPro Group then explored how insurance is evolving to support more resilient recovery. Topics ranged from the progress of Build Back Better, which Watertight proudly delivers, to the impact on loss adjusting, with an interesting talk from Ola Jacobs on the potential of parametric insurance to support communities struggling with traditional cover. A Q&A with BIBA and Flood Assist also highlighted the challenges for brokers and the importance of specialist guidance for at-risk customers.
Watertight’s Contribution: The Road to Resilience
Our CEO, Gareth Boyd, delivered a clear overview of where Property Flood Resilience fits into the wider resilience journey; from preparedness and adaptation to insurance-backed recovery. He outlined the role of PFR in reducing long-term losses, the importance of Build Back Better and Flood Performance Certificates, and how a whole-journey approach can support both homes and businesses.
Stories from the Front Line
Mary Long-Dhonau OBE shared some very powerful lived experiences from along the River Severn, demonstrating just how recoverable repair, such as raised electrics, flood-resilient flooring and elevated appliances, can significantly reduce recovery time. Her message: resilience is achievable, empowering and life-changing.
Building Resilient Communities — in Practice
From policy to practicality, Shelley Evans (JBA Consulting) and Paul Cobbing (Resilient Roch) showcased integrated approaches to climate-resilient communities, drawing on lessons from the FCRIP programme in Rochdale - which we are proud to be installation partners of.
This was followed by a compelling data-driven session from Conor O’Gorman, Catastrophe Risk Analyst at JBA Risk Management, who offered insights into national exposure and PFR suitability, from a report produced for Flood Re, JBA Consulting, and AddressCloud:
6.3 million properties in England are now at flood risk
4.6 million are at risk of surface water flooding
4 million properties are protected by formal flood defence
83% of surface-water-risk properties have no formal protection or inadequate drainage
Of the UK’s 30 million homes, 21.8 million are structurally suitable for PFR
3.4 million of these are at flood risk — 3.1 million with strong PFR potential
Applying PFR across suitable homes could halve annual flood losses, reducing them by ~£740 million
These findings underline the importance of mainstreaming PFR. As Peter Bonfield’s recent FloodReady report said; “It is essential that PFR becomes normalised by households, business owners, builders and developers.”
A Day That Showcased Collaboration at Its Best
Across the day, one theme stood above all others: resilience is about collaboration. From insurers and brokers to local authorities, engineers, loss adjusters, flood risk managers and PFR specialists, everyone in the room shared the same commitment: to help people and places prepare for, withstand and recover from flooding with greater confidence and less disruption.
We were proud to support this important event and contribute to the conversation, and would like to thank all speakers, organisers and attendees for such an informative event.
