Insurance and flood reports

SEPA has received a number of requests from people for flood risk reports as requested by their insurance companies. Although this may be a service that the Environment Agency can provide, SEPA has no statutory duty to do so and does not have the resources to deal with these types of requests. 

SEPA does hold the Indicative River and Coastal Flood Map (Scotland) which is available here and provides an indication of the flood with an annual probability of 0.5% (1 in 200 years). However it is not designed for, or capable of, indicating the definitive flood risk to individual properties. 

The Indicative River and Coastal Flood Map (Scotland) has been produced using modelling techniques to estimate the extent of a flood from all rivers where the area draining to the river is greater than 3km2. The information relating to the flood risk from the sea was created by projecting estimated extreme sea levels onto the approximation of Scotland’s coastal landscape. Both these techniques then provide an indication of where flooding is likely to occur.

The outlines do not account for flooding arising from sources such as surface water runoff, surcharged culverts or drainage systems. The methodology was not designed to quantify the impacts of factors such as flood alleviation measures, buildings and transport infrastructure on flood conveyance and storage. The Indicative River and Coastal Flood Map (Scotland) is designed to be used as a national strategic assessment of flood risk to support planning policy in Scotland.

Please note that the current licence under which interested parties, such as insurance companies, are able to gain access to the flood map does not allow them to use it for commercial purposes (e.g. to adjust their premiums).