Climate crisis helped drive payouts to seven-year high, say insurers

Flooding in York during Storm Jocelyn in January, the third of four named storms to hit the UK this year. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Britain’s largest insurance firms have warned that the climate crisis has contributed to driving up insurance payouts to the highest level in seven years, after a sharp rise in damage to households and businesses from weather events.

Figures from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) show that the amount paid out in the three months to the end of June hit £1.4bn, a 5% increase on the first quarter of the year and the highest figure of any quarter since it started collecting the data in 2017.