The Forum > Article Comments > Forget the insurers, let's blame the banks > Comments
Forget the insurers, let's blame the banks : Comments
By Tim O'Dwyer, published 16/2/2011As the most sophisticated party in most property transactions banks require their security to be insured, but never look at what they're insured against!
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The real problem is that people who build houses in flood plains cannot get flood cover for the fairly obvious reason that the house will be flooded at some point. If they insist on building in flood plains, particularly in the flood plain of the Brisbane River, then the building codes should be written so that the houses will stand partial immersion without requiring a major rebuild. Contents are another issue. Householders should not lay valuable wall-to-wall carpets and ensure that curtins can be easily removed.
You may well find that the building codes have been changed since the 1970s (the last set of floods in Brisbane), but housing stock does not turn over that fast. In any case the simple rule of thumb has always been - flood plain, no flood cover..