May’s Record Rainfall Leads to Rise in Roofing Repairs

THE UNUSUALLY WET and windy May has led to a surge in claims for roofing repairs, according to an East Midlands-based insurance company.

Some areas of the country, such as Wales, have already hit record-breaking levels of rainfall for May before the month has even ended. And, the UK as a whole is on track to have suffered the wettest May on record.

Roofing Repairs

Insurance specialist, CET has had to act quickly to manage a 451% growth in demand for roofing repairs compared to April 2021.

According to the data team at CET, which offers home emergency policies, requests from homeowners to fix roofing issues were also up 435% on May 2020.

The team saw the largest spike on Saturday 8 May – which saw persistent heavy rain across the UK. Compared to the previous five Saturdays, CET saw a 20-fold increase on the average number of callouts for roofing problems.

Rising to the Challenge

Chris McLain, CET’s chief executive officer, said: “By having a dedicated team of analysts monitoring potential triggers for surge activity – in this case wet weather – we are able to plan ahead and ensure we have resources available to manage a rapid growth in customer demand.”

“Coupled with this is our investment in technology over recent years, such as our cloud-based claims management platform SIMPLIFi, and our ever-evolving AI means we can track progress of the issue in real-time and take account for extreme external events – such as the washout weather we have all dealt with this month.”