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Altenahr in July 2021: damage in the billions
Photo:
Boris Roessler / dpa
A year ago, more than 180 people drowned and hundreds were injured in the flood disaster in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia.
Thousands of houses were destroyed in the Ahr valley and in the Eifel.
It is currently being rebuilt, mostly in the same place.
And the question of whether homeowners and residents can or must be insured against at least such property damage in the future has still not been answered.
My opinion: you should be obliged to have insurance, that would be cheaper for all of us and better for those affected.
And I recommend everyone to do that - even if it's not mandatory yet.
The fight for compulsory insurance
Last week, the General Association of the Insurance Industry (GDV) held a discussion on the flood disaster in the Eifel.
The main impetus: One year after the catastrophe, the insurance industry wants to prevent homeowners taking out insurance against natural hazards or natural disasters – as the federal states are now demanding – becoming mandatory in the future.
Allianz, R&V, ERGO and Co. do not want to have to insure all houses.
They think that's too risky.
They are therefore looking for instruments that cap the company's risk.
And they know what they're doing.
ERGO is part of Munich Re, no other group in Germany has such a good climate research department - probably not even in Europe.
Overall, the state has so far provided a reconstruction fund of 30 billion euros.
According to the GDV, an additional 8.5 billion euros in damage was privately insured.
More than 5 of the 8.5 billion have been paid out so far.
The rest aren't, because construction isn't finished yet – and only then will insurers pay the bill.
The flat learning curve of politics
After the flood disaster in 2021, the federal states are planning compulsory insurance for the first time.
The discussion has been going on since the floods of the century on the Elbe and Oder in 2002. But as recently as 2017, the majority of the federal states had rejected an obligation and were put off by the insurers, the vast majority of houses can be insured against such natural events without obligation.
That is not successful.
This failure of the insurers is one of the starting points for the current demand for an obligation: In Rhineland-Palatinate, only just under 40 percent of homeowners are insured against such a heavy rain event.
In Baden-Württemberg, where households had to have such insurance for a long time, it is still well over 90 percent.
And in Switzerland, such insurance has long been mandatory.
So while the insurers are breaking their promise to increase the insurance rate, the politicians are also not serious about their threat to let the injured, uninsured citizens sit at their expense in the future if they have not tried to get insurance.
Otherwise, no consequences will be drawn.
In the Ahr Valley and elsewhere in the Eifel, houses are currently being rebuilt in exactly the same places where they were lost.
It's as if nobody wants to learn from the disaster.
The insurers play their part in this: as a rule, they only pay for the new building in full if the same house is rebuilt in the same place.
This is stated in the model conditions of the insurance association, Article 17.6.
To make matters worse: Insured persons often cannot move, even if they were to give up part of the money.
The old property belongs to them, they would have to buy the new one in addition to the insurance damage.
So far, we all pay for the disasters
The problem can be described in economic terms.
According to the latest estimates, the catastrophe in the Ahr Valley and the Eifel cost 35 billion euros in addition to the many lives lost.
Just as much as promoting the coal phase-out is expected to cost over the next fifteen years.
Three times as much as we spend in Germany in the Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth per year.
The money is mainly paid by the state, i.e. by all of us as taxpayers.
From those with high incomes a little more, from those with low incomes perhaps only with VAT in the supermarket and at the petrol pump
.
In fact, the distribution of VAT between the federal and state governments is currently used to finance the flood victims' fund.
If all private damage were insured, we as a state, i.e. as taxpayers, would still have to pay billions for damage to roads, railway lines, schools and town halls.
Maybe half of the 30 billion euros in the flood victims' fund, maybe less.
But the other half would be paid by the insurers for those who suffered the damage.
And these insurance customers could take precautions to avoid or reduce damage - and thus reduce their insurance premium or deductible.
You could do that by not rebuilding your house in the same place.
Or by taking precautions to minimize the damage caused by flooding.
Your insurers could also, at one point or another, recover money from local authorities that approved homes that shouldn't have been approved.
Or have not taken the precautions that were contractually provided and guaranteed.
Incidentally, the insurers also called for a construction ban in flood-prone areas after the flood in 2021.
In the future, all homeowners will pay with a duty
Compulsory insurance also means that homeowners who are unlikely to be affected by such a catastrophe in the coming decades will still have to pay.
Homeowners instead of taxpayers - is that fair?
Yes.
And let's not kid ourselves: In many cases, the costs for the insurance are then passed on to the tenants in the houses.
However, it will always only be a part.
Because if you live in a comparatively safe area, you pay significantly lower insurance premiums than a homeowner on the banks of the Rhine.
In any case, this can be made fairer than if the pensioner from Buxtehude or Pirna pays for the flood damage in the Ahr Valley with her VAT from the supermarket.
I would also say it would be fairer.
Because first of all, at least in the case of a heavy rain event, no one can be absolutely sure that it will not affect him or her as a homeowner.
To choose a prominent example from the recent past: In 2014, during a heavy rain event in the Münster region, so much rain fell in seven hours that the equivalent of 266 million bathtubs of water were dumped over the Münster region – 40 million cubic meters.
Or to put it another way: 300 liters of water per square meter – twice as much as in the Ahr Valley disaster.
There were only two fatalities at the time.
A pensioner trapped in the basement by the speed of the flood tide - and a motorist.
It's flat in Münsterland, but it rained 25 times as much as the sewage system could hold.
The damage was enormous.
If compulsory insurance of this kind were to come about, it would initially cost all homeowners money, but it would be less expensive than it is today because all owners would have to pay as well.
And third, it would still make insuring houses in critical locations very expensive or impossible.
That would also be a means of exerting pressure on notorious high-risk house builders.
The Advisory Council for Consumer Questions, for example, suggests adding a deductible of 25,000 euros to the obligatory compulsory insurance, so that only catastrophic risks would really be covered, but they are definitely.
That would ensure once again that this compulsory insurance is not expensive and is also constitutional.
Of course, contracts with more protection and less deductible could still be concluded at any time.
Then society can decide.
Either the federal state or the municipality provide a replacement for the impossibly located property.
Entire villages have been completely resettled for lignite opencast mines.
Or the state deliberately pays part of the premium locally, because these houses are desired in the location.
In any case, those affected are much more likely to decide on the costs than they are today.
And the costs remain local.
The insurers have also understood that their previous efforts are insufficient and are now proposing to automatically provide all building insurance policies with an additional elementary damage supplement, even without the customer's signature.
That would not be compulsory.
But customers would have to make a conscious decision not to take out insurance and thus – after a corresponding change in the law – against state compensation.
And until the insurance obligation comes
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Until then, as a homeowner, you should decide: Do you take out such natural hazard insurance as part of your building insurance?
Ask your insurer!
Currently you can only buy this insurance cover as part of your buildings insurance.
The additional costs are 10 to 35 percent on top of your building insurance.
In addition, a deductible of up to 5000 euros is often provided.
It's an important decision, so it's worth comparing .
If your insurer doesn't want to or is too expensive, find a new buildings insurer to help you at the next opportunity.
Oh yes, dear tenants and dear residents of condominiums on the 13th floor: Such natural hazard insurance can also make sense for you as part of your household contents insurance.
When the basement floods, there is sometimes major damage there too.
Broken furniture, ruined heirlooms, destroyed libraries.
The household contents insurance then pays for them.
With new value.
Compare.
I speak from experience as a homeowner and as a renter.