Fracking puts insurance cover on shaky ground August 20 2014

Based on an article in The Sunday Times - 3/8/14 ~ by Ian Cowie

Some American Insurers are excluding claims for fracking damage from household cover and, some British Insurers are considering followings suit. It’s a fact that dozens of local authorities in America have banned fracking, and litigation is under way between some of them and a few energy companies.

Martin Milliner, of the insurers LV, stated “Fracking is alleged to have caused earth tremors in Lancashire and environmental damage in America, where financial loss, suffered as a result of this risk, has been excluded from some insurers’ standard household cover. With an estimated 30% of the UK potentially suitable for fracking, insurers will have to debate their appetite for related risks. As with flooding, in the extreme case where a house becomes uninsurable, it could also become unmortgageable and unsellable.”

Nationwide, an American Insurer unrelated to the British Building Society of the same name, has apparently excluded fracking damage from a wide range of policies, after Texan drillers paid compensation to householders for methane gas found in their tap water.

Bricks and mortar are many Britons’ most valuable asset. Household insurance is meant to protect us from unlikely mishaps. Fracking risks must be properly assessed and evaluated.