UFO Info Week-End

Properties are considered to meet this standard if they are at risk of one

Properties are considered to meet this standard if they are at risk of one flood in 75 years. ABI members will continue to cover home owners living in such areas under a standard policy, while premiums and special contract terms will reflect the different levels of flood risk.This means that many houses aren’t uninsurable, as was previously feared would be the case as the moratorium neared its end. Meanwhile, people living on a floodplain should be able to sell their properties, if they wish to do so, because buyers should be able to get a mortgage. After all, most banks and building societies won’t issue a loan to buy a property that is uninsurable.The ABI says that its members, which account for 85 per cent of the insurance market, will continue to insure a property on a floodplain when it is sold to a new owner.However, Mark Harris, director of mortgage broker Savills Private Finance, says you shouldn’t automatically assume you will be covered in your new home, as your own claims record will be taken into account by the insurer. “If you are buying somewhere on a floodplain, check the vendor’s insurance to make sure it can be transferred into your name.”For those in high-risk areas where flood defences don’t provide enough protection to meet the Government’s minimum standards, the availability of cover is not guaranteed; instead, the risks will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Mr Tarling at the ABI says that the Environment Agency still has to provide information on about 200,000 properties concerning their vulnerability and any defences likely to be put in place. But he adds that this doesn’t mean those properties are necessarily uninsurable.Home owners can keep up to date with the latest flood alerts by calling the Environment Agency’s Floodline on 0845 988 1188.. Few events in the literary calendar for 2003 count as predictable, but one does look like a racing cert. When, in the spring, Granta magazine unveils its third array of “Best of Young British Novelists”, we shall witness a re-run of fiction’s Battle of the Atlantic Last year saw a pretty lively skirmish. Groundless reports that the Man Booker Prize would open its doors to US authors unleashed not-so-friendly fire from critics. Some saw British novelists as small-minded, parochial pygmies, compared to the world-bestriding grandeur and glamour of their American rivals.

This is a circular, and pointless, row, which among the pro-Yank ranks often reduces to a battle-cry of “Never mind the quality, feel the width”. Under this tatty standard, Gone with the Wind will start to seem like a greater work than Pride and Prejudice And yet … as I drew up a list of promising novels due in this year’s first half, something like that old transatlantic gulf did begin to take shape. It’s not that Brits lack ambition or that North Americans (I’m afraid I include Canada here) lack finesse. Rather, grand themes and high ideas often attract – on this side of the ocean – compact and intensive treatment. On the other, they may stretch out over far broader expanses of space and time.