Natural hazards: These natural hazards are covered by the additional insurance

Protection against natural hazards

Natural damage: You are protected with this insurance

Experts expect significantly severe storms and floods in the future. Homeowners quickly find themselves in financial distress.

Is there damage caused by storms, hail, Heavy rainlightning strikes or frost are in most cases covered by ordinary household contents or residential building insurance, homeowners have to protect themselves against other natural damage such as floods, landslide or additional insurance for damage caused by snow. The Natural hazard insurance is an additional component to your household contents or residential building insurance.

Natural damage – insurance at a glance:

• Heavy rain
• landslide
• Avalanches
• Snow pressure
• Subsidence
• earthquake
• Backflow in sewerage system

Depending on the insurance company, region of residence and the types of damage insured, natural hazard insurance, now also known as natural hazard insurance, costs between 50 and 450 euros per year, according to Stiftung Warentest. There is no obligation to take out this insurance.

If damage occurs, the insurance pays off. Even on a single-family home, damage can easily reach six figures. According to the General Association of the German Insurance Industry (GDV), the highest settled individual loss after the Elbe flood in 2002 was 400,000 euros. Without sufficient insurance coverage, property owners are usually ruined in such a drastic event.

However, not all companies insure damage equally. One flooding for example, can arise either from flooding, persistent rain or increased groundwater as a result of rain or flooding. For example, while insurance A insures all three cases, insurance B excludes flooding. Therefore, read the relevant clauses carefully. Usually, after the insurance events listed, the item for which the insurance does not cover damage is listed under the heading “Damage that is not insured is….”

The extent to which you can insure your home also depends on the area in which you live. For example, buildings that are particularly at risk of flooding are listed in the flood risk database. All insurers can access the data from the database called ZÜRS Geo online and check in which danger zone the house is located, to what extent this increases the insurance premium or even excludes insurance completely and generally inquire about their environmental liability risk.

In general, there are four risk classes (GK):

• Hazard class 1: According to current data, this zone is not affected by floods from larger bodies of water
• Danger class 2: In this zone, floods occur less often than once in 100 years. This includes areas that could also be flooded in an “extreme flood” or flood of the century.
• Danger class 3: Floods can occur in this zone every ten to 100 years
• Danger class 4: Floods occur in this zone at least every ten years.