Home insurance customers warned to expect hike in premiums

Flood victims face astronomical hikes in the cost of protecting their properties as home insurance companies get tough, it has been claimed.

Writing for the Daily Mail, Liz Phillips warned that some homeowners are being hit with a 500 per cent rise in their insurance bills and told to foot the first £6,000 of any future claim themselves.

These insurance hikes, Ms Phillips explained, are revealed in a new report by consumer charity the National Flood Forum.

The report surveyed 300 flood victims and discovered that, on average, they had suffered a hike in their premiums of 500 per cent.

One in ten of these households had flooding excluded from their cover when they came to renew their insurance - even though insurers agreed to continue providing cover to existing customers in homes at a high risk of flooding until 2013, she observed.

Meanwhile, NFU Mutual, the UK's leading rural insurer, recently warned home insurance customers to get their jewellery professionally valued as soaring gold prices have more than doubled the street value of some family keepsakes in recent years.