Building resilience through the Flood School insights

Our recent acquisition of the Disaster Care Group including The National Flood School doesn't just strengthen our ability to support our customers following events such as fire and flooding. It works with regional experts who provide essential services such as drying, cleaning, strip-out and reinstatement to stabilise homes and businesses following events including fire or flooding. These services play a critical role in limiting further damage, managing costs and helping customers recover as quickly and safely as possible.
 

What is the Flood School?

The National Flood School is a specialist training facility designed to bring flood, escape of water and property restoration scenarios to life. Set up like a real home, it allows rooms to be deliberately flooded so visitors can see first-hand the impact water can have on buildings and contents, as well as the techniques used to restore them.
 

Recently, a small team from Aviva Claims visited the Flood School to gain further insight into flood resilience, restoration best practice and the challenges customers face following a flood event.
 

The visit included a live flooding demonstration, illustrating how quickly water can spread through a property and the extensive damage it can cause in a short period of time. The team also learned about a range of restoration techniques and technologies used to assess, manage and mitigate damage.
 

This included:

• Different drying methods used to restore properties following water damage
• Moisture detection and monitoring technology
• Practical approaches to reducing disruption during restoration
• Innovative flood resilience measures that can help protect homes and businesses

The team also reviewed a range of resilience products, including flood doors, temporary flood barriers, self-closing air bricks and non-return valves designed to help prevent water entering properties or backing up through drainage systems.

In addition, the Flood School team shared simple, practical measures that property owners can take to improve preparedness and help reduce the impact of future flooding.
 

Helping support your customers

Flooding remains one of the most significant and distressing risks facing many property owners and businesses. Recovery can take months, with disruption extending far beyond physical property damage.

By giving our claims teams greater insight into flood resilience and restoration, visits like these help strengthen our understanding of the challenges customers face and the solutions available to support them.

Why it matters

Flood risk continues to be a growing concern. Government data shows flood risk is already widespread and expected to grow as extreme weather events become more frequent.
 

• 6.3 million homes in England are in areas at risk of flooding. ¹
• Around 4.6 million properties are in areas at risk of flooding from surface water, making it the largest source of flood risk in England. ¹
• Around 1 in 4 properties in England will be in areas at risk of flooding from rivers and the sea or surface water by mid-century.¹

As flood risk increases, understanding resilience and recovery measures will become increasingly important in helping customers protect their homes and businesses.
 

By continuing to develop our expertise through initiatives such as The National Flood School, we're helping to support better outcomes for your customers before, during and after a flood event.

We're now hosting broker visits at The National Flood School. To register your interest or find out about upcoming dates, please speak to your aligned Claims Relationship Lead, who will be sharing further details shortly.
 

^{1 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-assessment-of-flood-and-coastal-erosion-risk-in-england-2024/national-assessment-of-flood-and-coastal-erosion-risk-in-england-2024}

^{Government sources contain public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.}