If councils ignore maintenance of their drainage systems, so as to avoid flooding, home owners in the area may find their insurance company cancelling their house and family insurance policies.

“Either councils do something, or we will have to cancel policies in the area. That is the harsh consequence, so we hope that councils rise to the task and ensure the population’s valuables,” Alm. Brand’s CEO Søren Boe Mortensen tells Børsen.

Mortensen says that his company views it as a council job to take action when streams repeatedly flood their banks.

But home-owners are not the only ones in the danger zone of having their insurance policies cancelled.

Badly maintained and under dimensioned drainage is a major problem in various municipal councils. “There are some councils who keep coming back – and there we have problems with their policies,” says Mortensen.

Alm. Brand receives backing from the Forsikring og Pension (Insurance and Pension) organisation which says it has unsuccessfully tried to enter into a dialogue with councils.

“The problem is that drains have not historically been particularly high on the local government political agenda,” says Deputy Director Carsten Andersen at Forsikring og Pension.

But the Socialist People’s Party Mayor of Lejre, who is also Deputy Chairwoman of Local Government Denmark says she is fully prepared to cut off particularly exposed housing areas as not being suitable for habitation.

“Some houses are probably located in particularly unsuitable places,” she tells Børsen.

“But it is not a council’s responsibility whether these people can insure their houses,” she says.