Natural hazards: This insurance protects you

Experts are expecting severe storms and flooding in the future. Homeowners will quickly find themselves in financial distress.

While damage caused by storms, hail, heavy rain, lightning or frost is in most cases covered by standard home contents or building insurance, homeowners must also insure themselves against other natural hazards such as floods, landslides or damage caused by snow. Natural hazard insurance is an additional component to your home contents or building insurance.

Elemental damage – coverage at a glance:

• Heavy rain
• landslide
• Avalanches
• Snow pressure
• Subsidence
• earthquake
• Backflow in sewer 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 is worth it. Even for a single-family home, damage can easily run into six figures. According to the German Insurance Association (GDV), the highest settled individual damage after the Elbe floods in 2002 was 400,000 euros. Without adequate insurance cover, property owners are usually ruined in such a drastic case.

However, not all companies insure damage in the same way. A flood, for example, can be caused by high water, 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 caused by high water. Therefore, read the relevant clauses very carefully. Usually, after the listed insured events, under the heading “Damage that is not insured…”, the things for which the insurance does not cover are listed.

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

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

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

Damage must be reported to the insurance company immediately. This should be done in writing by registered mail. However, as a first step, it may be sufficient to call or send an email with a description of the damage. If you are being looked after by an agent, you should also inform them immediately.

The Association of Insured Persons (BdV) advises those affected to take photos for documentation purposes. It is also a good idea to keep a detailed list of the damaged items. The insurance company must have the opportunity to assess the damage. It will usually send an assessor to examine the damage. Important: Never dispose of damaged items without the express consent of the insurer.

Even if you are effectively insured against natural hazards, you cannot simply sit back and do nothing if the water continues to rise during a flood. The so-called duty to mitigate damage forces policyholders to prevent foreseeable damage as best as possible or to keep the damage as low as possible.

Valuable household goods must be brought out of the basement and high-quality furniture removed from the ground floor when the water rises. Whatever you can do yourself to prevent or reduce damage without risk, you must do it.

If the house is located near a river and flooding occurs regularly, insurance experts even recommend preventive structural measures to protect against flooding. Otherwise, an expert could decide that the damage was caused by “gross negligence”. The insurer could then reduce the payment or refuse it altogether.

• Permanently installed
  All damage that occurs directly to the building is covered by the building insurance, explains the German Insurance Association (GDV). This includes damage to walls, roof tiles and window panes. If the basement is flooded, however, it only pays out if additional natural hazard insurance has been taken out.
• Movable objects
  Home contents insurance is responsible for damage to household contents such as furniture and electrical appliances. It pays for electrical appliances that have been damaged by lightning or furniture that has been soaked by rain as a result of a broken window.
• automobile
  Partial comprehensive insurance covers damage to the car. The costs for dented sheet metal or broken windows are usually reimbursed in full.