Germany’s insurers fear immense flood damage in the future because tens of thousands of buildings have been built in flood-prone areas. In Bavaria, 65,000 addresses are located in flood areas and are therefore at risk of flooding, as the General Association of the German Insurance Industry warned on Tuesday. This includes residential buildings, commercial buildings, farms and other agricultural buildings as well as public buildings.
The threat varies greatly across the Free State: The most threatened region is the Kitzingen district, where of almost 33,000 addresses, 2,800 are in a potential flood zone. This corresponds to a share of almost nine percent. The Deggendorf district follows in second place with 3,400 at-risk addresses, a share of 8.2 percent. The Kronach district takes third place in this table with 2,000 addresses and a rate of 6.1 percent.
The association has classified buildings as being at risk of flooding if they were built on land officially classified as a flood zone or danger area. “Due to climate change and therefore more frequent extreme weather events, billions of euros in damage are inevitable,” said GDV deputy managing director Anja Käfer-Rohrbach.
The association complained that politicians were mainly discussing compulsory insurance, but that better prevention hardly played a role in the debate. Among other things, the GDV called for a construction ban in officially designated danger areas.