Cllr. Kieran Binchy recently received the following confirmation that the Office of Public Works and Dublin City Council are working with the Irish Insurance Federation to ensure that all works by the council and the OPW are taken into account by insurance companies when offering home and household insurance, or when in particular considering flood cover.
Question to City Manager City Council Meeting 04/03/2013
Q97. COUNCILLOR KIERAN BINCHY
To ask the Manager what negotiations or contact he has had with individual
insurance companies or with the IIF about flood protection works in order to ensure that insurance companies recognise flood protection works when providing household insurance policies to residents of the city.
CITY MANAGER’S REPLY:
The issue of house insurance for premises which have a history of flooding is predominantly an issue between the householders and the Insurance Companies. Since October 2011, Dublin City Council has responded to a number of requests for information from insurance companies in relation to proposals, either short or medium term, for works in particular areas of the City. We will continue to respond to such requests for information. We have also issued letters to householders in particular areas of the city in relation to works proposed and indicated that they could use the information in those letters in their dealings with insurance companies. The OPW is currently in talks with the Irish Insurance Federation with regard to properties that have been flooded and are experiencing difficulties in obtaining flood insurance cover in areas in which the OPW has carried out flood defence works.
Dublin City Council is currently liaising with the OPW and the Irish Insurance Federation on the matter.
This is in addition to the confirmation by Paschal Donohoe that those whose house values have been affected by flooding should reflect this in their self-evaluation for the household property tax and the confirmation from the OPW that talks are ongoing with the Irish Insurance Federation received earlier this year:
“There have been a number of discussions between the OPW and the IIF on a sustainable system of information sharing particularly in relation to the identification of flood alleviation schemes and works completed and where the standard of protection afforded by these works could be verified.
A proposed template for providing the required information, on a GIS platform, was presented to the IIF and a number of the main insurance companies in July 2012.
The IIF has responded within the last fortnight to this presentation and, while it raised a number of technical issues on the information, it has given a broadly favourable response to the proposed OPW template.
Work will now continue between the OPW and the IIF on further progressing the matter.”