By Charlotte Beugge

Floods, water leaks and storms are the events most feared by home insurance providers - and the weather in the first few weeks of this year is crucial to how much policyholders will pay for home cover in 2012.

A survey of Britain's largest insurers by business advisory firm Deloitte found that household insurers are likely to impose price rises of between 5% and 10% in premiums this year.

It forecasts that while household insurance is likely to show an underwriting profit for 2011, after losses in 2010, how the weather is in the early weeks of this year will influence how much homeowners are charged.

James Rakow, insurance partner at Deloitte, says: "In 2010 the insurance industry was hit hard by the extremely cold weather that Britain experienced in December that year, and the additional freeze claims wiped out the profits insurers expected to make on household policies.

"The weather in 2011 was more benign and it looks as though the industry is on target to declare an underwriting profit for 2011."

Mr Rakow adds: "The outturn for 2012 will largely be determined by the weather and the storms that hit Britain in the first few days of January act as a reminder of the huge losses that natural perils such as storms and floods can produce."

Meanwhile, insurers and banks are dragging their feet over simple customer complaints in an effort to cut costs, according to the Daily Mail.

It says that the Financial Ombudsman Service is likely to get around 28,100 complaints about insurance in the year to April, up from 20,967 in the previous year. The massive increase is due mainly to disputes about home and emergency cover.