More than 20 years ago, in 2002, Dublin was hit by extreme tidal flooding with more than 1,100 properties inundated.
It was an event that took the capital by surprise, as the last serious sea flood had occurred exactly 80 years earlier in 1922.
Many of the flooded properties were in the southeast of the city and Dublin City Council determined new flood defences were required to protect more than 1,000 homes in Sandymount.
Their construction has been delayed several times since and, while interim measures have been put in place, in 2023 the council announced the defences needed to be redesigned to take into account higher waves and sea levels.
A contract to design the Sandymount flood defence scheme was finally awarded to engineers Jacobs last December with an “emerging option” expected by the end of 2026. But the defences are not expected to be completed until 2032.
Meanwhile, residents have been left not only worrying about risks to their homes but paying in some cases astronomical insurance premiums.
One householder who has lived in the same house in Sandymount for 40 years remembers some houses on her road flooded in 2002, though her own home escaped. Her insurance premiums remained unaffected at the time and didn’t rise for many years afterwards. She declined to be named but was happy to share her experience of rising insurance costs to match the increased risk from living so close to rising seas.
In about 2018 her quote doubled from just over €400 to about €800 – and, crucially, this excluded flood cover. Eventually, after much shopping around, she got insurance that included flood risk at a cost of €1,200.
“The year before last it went to €1,700, then we were told they were pulling out of the market. We had to start searching again and it was very, very hard to get quotes. But we felt we couldn’t do without flood cover; I mean, if your house is flooded that costs huge money,” says the resident.
She managed to source two quotes: “One for €3,500 and another for €4,500. Even with that, we had to get a letter of comfort from Dublin City Council.”
The council provides letters that detail the flood risk for a particular property and any remedial flood alleviation work completed, which insurers accept as part of their determination process.
She does not expect her premiums to reduce, despite the promise of future flood defence schemes. And she says her family’s ability to pay will have to be considered in the future.
“We will keep paying it while we can, for peace of mind. When you hear there’s a storm coming in or high tides, even though we’ve never been affected, you do worry. I don’t think I’d sleep at night if I didn’t have it. But we’re both retired and the time may come when we just can’t afford it,” she says.
Another resident, a newcomer to Sandymount, last year found himself faced with a stark choice: pay €3,000 for insurance or lose the house he was in the process of buying.
“When we first went sale agreed on the house, we didn’t know the extent to which the big insurers have pulled back from the market in terms of flood insurance. We needed the insurance to draw down the mortgage and it got to the stage where we were on the verge of pulling out because we couldn’t get any,” he says.
He began knocking on what, he hoped, would be his new neighbour’s doors to ask who they used for insurance.
“It seems like people used to have flood insurance and then a lot of the insurers just one day says they weren’t doing flood any more. People who didn’t have mortgages, some of them were doing without flood cover,” he says.
“These are people who have been there for 20-plus years and they’ve never been flooded and they couldn’t remember a time when there was flooding. People who did have it all seemed to be with the same provider.”
Through this word-of-mouth process and contacting numerous brokers he did eventually get a quote, but it was not what he had hoped.
“We had thought, ‘this is annoying, we’re going to have to pay up a bit, maybe €800 instead of €400, something like that’. But we thought, ‘it’s a nice area and this is just the cost of living in a coastal zone’. Then I got this eventual quote of €3,000. It sounded ridiculous,” he says.
Part of his surprise was because he was moving to Sandymount from another coastal community, East Wall, just on the opposite side of Dublin Bay, where his home insurance, including flood cover was about €400.
“We never imagined the difference would be anything like that, but we were so far down the line, and it had been a lengthy process to get the house, and we just didn’t want to give it all up,” he says.
“We have been told that the no-claims bonus does start to kick in, and maybe after five years it might be half what we’re paying now, but at the moment we’re viewing it as the cost of living in the area.”
James Burke, an insurance broker who also lives in Sandymount, says the costs of insurance, and the number of insurers willing to provide flood cover, can vary considerably in the area.
“Sandymount would be a little bit unusual because the premiums people are paying would typically be quite high because the building sums are quite high,” he says.
“Typically in a flood risk area you could see a 50 to 75 per cent increase in your premium and a €2,500 excess on the policy for flood, whereas a standard policy might have a €350 or €500 excess.”
In terms of access to providers, Burke says some general insurers continue to provide flood cover to certain households.
“You will find properties that are in flood areas within Sandymount or Irishtown or Ringsend where the insurers are still keeping the covers in place and haven’t withdrawn them.”
However, new buyers will frequently find themselves rejected by the well-known insurers and that’s where a broker such as Dolmen can step in to organise cover, Burke says.
“I don’t recall coming across the property in Sandymount that we haven’t been able to insure. Yes, it can be a considerable extra cost every year, but it means that you’re able to buy the house,” he says.
The resolution to this problem doesn’t lie with the insurance sector, Burke says, but in the State adequately addressing the flooding risk.
“The solution is not for the insurers to be paying out three times a year for flood on a particular property; it’s for the local authorities to fix the flood problem. Items that are personal to you will never be replaced by somebody from an insurance company writing a cheque.”
