Floods in Pas-de-Calais: households affected twice will not pay a double insurance excess, assures Le Maire

While Pas-de-Calais experienced a new episode of exceptional flooding last week, the second in the space of two months, today comes the time for compensation for the victims. And Bruno Le Maire gave them a little comfort on Sunday, announcing that victims of the floods of recent days and who had already been affected in November would not have to pay the insurance excess a second time.

“I want no resident of Pas-de-Calais or flooded areas to pay their deductible twice,” declared the Minister of the Economy on the set of the show “Dimanche en politique” on France 3. commitment was made by the insurers, I made sure of it this week, I know that the insurers will keep their commitment.” As a reminder, the deductible - or the sum of money remaining payable by the insured - in the context of a natural disaster (Cat Nat) such as floods amounts to 380 euros.

“We have heard the concern of individuals regarding the risk of having to pay two Cat Nat deductibles due to the succession of two extreme events in two months,” Bruno Le Maire’s office subsequently clarified. It would obviously not be acceptable for a resident who has been flooded twice in two months, and who would not even have been able to benefit from the launch of renovation work, to have their deductible doubled.” He assures that “insurers undertake to ensure that there is no excess requested twice from individuals”.

The latter have also undertaken “to simplify as much as possible the methods of expertise of housing already affected two months ago”, we report in Bercy. “Depending on the seriousness of the cases, a quicker visit by the expert, or photos sent to his insurer, may be sufficient,” the ministry is told. After the first episode of flooding last November, “the insurers did the job,” said Bruno Le Maire on France 3 on Sunday. The Bercy tenant welcomes the fact that 98% of claims have been the subject of an expertise and that more than 50% of policyholders have already received compensation.

After the second episode of record flooding in less than two months, the slow decline continues at the start of the week. “More than 300 businesses” were “directly affected” in Pas-de-Calais by these new floods, declared this Monday on Franceinfo François Lavallée, president of the Littoral Hauts-de Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI). -France. “It goes from traders to small artisans to larger companies,” he explained. But a “much larger number of businesses” were “affected indirectly,” he added.