Introduction
Flooding is a natural process, which happens due to some changes in the environment. It can be caused by such things as storms, hurricanes, and ice jams. A lot of people from the countries near the water suffer from floods. Canada is one of them, and flooding is considered to be a natural disaster for Canadians. The way to protect one’s life and home from it is a flooding insurance program.
Main body
There are some reasons for it to be adopted.
Floods are the major source of property loss: according to the analysis made by Munich, insurance companies do not want to take all the bills they get and ignore the majority of them. Unfortunately, this information is true to life, as it was confirmed by Ceres’s research. He claims that this tendency extends to the whole world and is valid for all kinds of property damage. The number of overall losses caused by floods is the highest one, and less than half of them were compensated in 2013. Many people who were sure they will have at least some money back face the situation when they are told to have nothing repaid (Renders par. 3). Thus, citizens lose both their property and believe in a better future.
There are no strict rules for recovery of losses: the government has an opportunity to take only those bills that they want, and they use this chance. There is no obligation for it to make amends, and if it made them then that was only a stroke of luck (Renders par. 2). In other situations, one can paddle only own canoe.
Floods make people change their lives: if one’s home was awfully damaged he/she needs to find a new one for living and/or to repair an old one. If a place where one worked suffered from a flood, he/she is in need of finding some side job or a completely new one. Such changes are a problem to get accustomed to. One can lose contact with his/her family and friends, which has an adverse effect on the quality of life (Renders par. 13).
Concept of adapting to severe weather is not enough: Dr. Blair Feltmate points out in his speech that it is possible to reduce the effect of flooding with the help of build adaptation (Meckbach par. 1). Of course, this concept will be extremely helpful and will prevent people from losing their homes. But it can be easily done only while talking about the buildings that are to be built soon. Those that are already built can be improved, but it is impossible to enhance every detail in every building all over the suffering regions. Thuswise, the concept of adaptation is not good enough to solve the problem.
Climate changes make the situation worse: Canadian politics and scientists claim that programs for adaptation to the weather will somehow result in the change of climate. However, they mostly concentrate on the awaiting problem of wildfires that is opposite to the flooding. Still, they underline the fact that weather changes are likely to bring severe floods, tornadoes, or large hurricanes (Meckbach par. 11). Through reliance on scientists’ words, they make this information sound authoritative and prove that something is to be done to protect the citizens.
Advantages over government relief programs: governmental relief programs are very helpful in case of flooding; however, they only reduce the problems that people have. Insurance is oriented on full compensation. Relief programs seem to be the best variant for those who did not do much to reduce the risk of damage caused by this disaster, while insurance programs encourage such actions. Insurance companies pay a lot of attention to the assessment and repayment (Sandink et al. 7).
Conclusion
Thus, considering everything mentioned above, it becomes clear that the situation we have today does not promise a good future for people who live near the water. Some changes should be made to protect the citizens from flooding, and the flood insurance program is the first one.
Works Cited
Meckbach, Greg 2014, Canada Needs National Flood Insurance Initiative, Experts Say. Web. 2015.
Renders, Ashley. Why Canada Doesn’t Have a National Flood Plan. 2014. Web.
Sandink, Dan, Lorenzo Dilorio, Greg Oulahen and Glen McGillivray 2010, Making Flood Insurable for Canadian Homeowners. Web.