Welcome to Downstream News, a special annual review edition!


I am delighted to be sending my first Downstream News having been passed the CEO baton by Andy after his 7 years at Flood Re. I am Interim CEO while the Board appoints a permanent successor.
We are immensely proud of what Flood Re has achieved during Andy’s tenure; the world-first Build Back Better (BBB) initiative we introduced is already delivering improved flood resilience to hundreds of homes and helping the country to prepare for the future.
Andy thanks everyone who has worked with Flood Re over this period to make the Scheme the success that it is and I look forward to continuing this good work into the future.
We have a lot of wonderful news to share with you; feel free to share with your colleagues and should you have any questions we would love to hear from you at comms@floodre.co.uk

Stuart Logue – Interim CEO Flood Re
AGM and Annual Review
We held our Annual General Meeting on the 18 July. We are pleased to share with you our new look Annual Review which can be viewed HERE.

Flood Re Quinquennial Review
Flood Re’s Second Statutory Review (“QQR2”)
Flood Re is required by law to review the effectiveness of the scheme every five years. We are committed to engaging with all our stakeholders and government policy-makers to produce a package of recommendations regarding the future of the Flood Re scheme. We have finalised the report, and it has now been published following its presentation to the Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Following this publication there will be a formal consultation period before any changes are implemented. All participants will be given appropriate time frames to adopt any mandatory changes. We are incredibly grateful for the support we have been shown by all of our stakeholders during this period. The QQR report will be published on our website HERE should you wish to bookmark the location.

The Flood Resilient Garden
We were incredibly proud to showcase our Flood Resilient Garden at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show in May, a functional and beautiful space that addressed the urgent need for flood mitigation in the UK’s green spaces. The garden allowed us to raise awareness of the “Build Back Better” initiative which encourages homeowners to proactively install flood resilience measures during repairs to enable more homes to recover more swiftly from flooding and stand better protected against future incidents.
The event was a resounding success, and we managed to reach a total of 2.8bn people through the press including daily coverage on the BBC! We have packed the garden up and are currently in the process of rebuilding that garden in its forever home at Howbery Park. We have a full write up over on our hub page HERE including a stunning time-lapse video of the construction.

Build Back Better is Evolving!
Flood Re’s Build Back Better scheme has now been running for over 2 years and we have several participants with long-term experience. We believe now is the time to review the structure and approach of how BBB is offered to policy-holders.
Some of the changes we’d like to see going forward are:
- Reducing or removing a claims trigger.
- Offering the maximum BBB fund to eligible claims.
- Raising education and awareness both internally and with external partners.
- Ensuring policy-holders are aware they are eligible for this benefit and why it is advantageous.
- Considering the use of cost-neutral approaches and outdoor space.
- Ensuring PFR-focused flood surveys are carried out as often as possible.
- Increasing policy-holder awareness of flood risk, preparedness and encouraging them to understand how to act in the event of a flood.
- Encouraging all participants to ensure that anyone with a delegated authority writing policies on their behalf are also sufficiently educated on BBB.
We are aware that there is still an opportunity to increase understanding of BBB and PFR in the market and we hope to address that where we can. We are able to offer bespoke training for anyone that is interested. Please contact the team HERE to ask for more information.
We really enjoyed presenting a series of lunch and learn sessions on BBB and PFR. We are currently refreshing the content and will launch series 2 this autumn. Sign up to be notified when the series is live HERE.

Updates from our Operations Team
Obligation for monthly submission of underwriting and claims bordereaux
We would like to take the opportunity to remind all cedants and their agents that Flood Re requires timely monthly submissions of both claims and underwriting bordereaux. This requirement reflects Flood Re’s own obligation for both internal planning and reserving and external reporting to retrocessionaires. We would also like to remind all cedents that the Flood Risk Elements of Policies that insurers wish to cede to Flood Re must be submitted to and accepted by Flood Re within 120 days of the Transaction Effective Start Date. If any policies are ceded after this date then they will only be covered from the submission date. If you are unable to meet that requirement, please contact support@floodre.co.uk. Our Operations team will be happy to assist with any queries and ensure you can successfully submit your bordereaux.
Property Data Hub (PDH)
We are pleased to confirm that V33 of the offline file is now available on PDH. Please ensure you download the latest version of the file to ensure you have the most accurate and up to date eligibility information.

Flood Performance Certificates
We were delighted to attend Flood and Coast in June and whilst we were there held an event to launch our FPC roadmap.
The FPC is a system which enables householders to understand what level of resilience their property has to being flooded, how to improve this resilience and how to convey this information to partners (insurers and lenders). The system:
- Focuses less on the ‘product’ which conveys the information as the framework which enables such an assessment.
- Sets out the multiple benefits of such a framework. A system such as this could be utilised to support public sector business cases, planning, insurance and lending.
- Re-commits Flood Re to developing and testing the framework which makes assessments and certification possible at a property level.
- Emphasises the importance of innovation and Flood Re’s commitment to creating a framework that can be utilised in different ways thus supporting innovation in how we engage householders. This is an open invitation to industry to work with us on this. In particular, Flood Re wants to learn from specialised commercial insurers who are now using resilience at property level routinely – as demonstrated at BIBA 24!

In Partnership with BIBA
We are delighted to have officially joined BIBA as an insurer partner; we’ve already been able to reach so many more people in the home insurance market as a result.
We are also excited to share that we are joining BIBA for their tour of the regions later this year. Check out the BIBA website HERE to see when we’ll be in your area – do stop by to say hello if you’ll be there!

Flooding Hot Topics
Our Head of Research has the following updates to share:
1. Green Finance Institute releases report on financing Natural Flood Management
GFI’s March 2024 report into NFM provides an in-depth assessment of the sorts of actions to be taken in order to see more projects and a greater use of NFM nationwide. It outlines actions to be taken in general, noting that NFM receives a fraction of public funding for flood resilience and recommending it be prioritised and given a strategic emphasis at the national level, due to the significant co-benefits that it creates. The report is framed primarily through a lens of enabling private finance, and makes numerous recommendations, such as improving data, setting clear standards, and clarifying stacking rules. Flood Re’s Head of Research sat on the strategic working group for the report. Flood Re’s 2023 Transition Plan noted increased use of NFM as a necessary strategic direction to manage future flood risk.
SOURCE
2. Government responds to Public Accounts Committee on Flood Resilience
In our last newsletter, we detailed the national audit office’s report on flood management. DEFRA has now responded to the public accounts committee, and noted that it is working on an indicator for national flood resilience that will be included in the upcoming National Flood Risk Assessment (Nafra2), and will work with other departments to ensure that planning advice is being enforced/followed. It also promises that the consultation on Sustainable Urban Drainage System originally promised in April 2023 will be released by Spring 2024.
SOURCE
3. Government responds to NIC report on surface water flooding
The National Audit has assessed DEFRA’s progress in delivering the first two years of its flood and coastal erosion risk management capital spending programme, against the backdrop of its 2020 policy statement and EA’s 2020 strategy. They determined that the £5.2bn in spending allocated to the EA’s capital spending program will only be able to better protect up to 200k properties, as well as a shortfall in the EA’s annual resource funding resulting in 203k properties at increased risk of flooding. The program originally targeted no net increase in properties at risk of flooding; the NAO’s assessments make clear that this target will not be achieved, and that flood risk is growing nationally in spite of considerable spending.
SOURCE
4. FT continues to highlight climate impacts on global insurance markets
This winter has seen numerous articles highlighting the impact that climate change is having on insurance coverage globally. 2024 has seen a trend of articles looking in particular at the US market after insurers announced they were stepping back from writing further policies in California and other parts of the US. Stories from the UK note the difficult global picture, but note that Flood Re continues to ensure that insurance cover remains broadly available and affordable, highlighting programs like Build Back Better which aim to control costs over time and preserve insurability within the UK market.
Source: The uninsurable world: what climate change is costing homeowners (ft.com)
5. UKRI investment in flood and hydrology data and monitoring infrastructure
UKRI’s £38M investment in the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)’s Floods & Droughts Research Infrastructure program continues to roll out. Initially announced in 2022, the investment will build an infrastructure capable of incorporating hydrology data from across the country, as well as developing and deploying a next generation of instrumentation and approaches for the measurement of extreme hydrological events. The FDRI also provides a platform for wider data inclusion, hydrology and modelling.

The PFR Roundtable
Flood Re chairs and convenes the PFR Roundtable, the industry forum for the PFR sector. To date, the Roundtable has led on the creation of a Code of Practice, a Community of Practice and associated training. It is a really important forum for raising practical and technical questions relating to Build Back Better. If you would be interested in joining the group mailing list please email the team HERE

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