The wet and windy weather the country endured last month has led to a 451% surge in claims for roofing repairs, according to insurance specialist CET.
With the UK suffering one of the wettest Mays on record, CET had to quickly manage significant growth in demand for roofing repairs compared to April 2021.
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.
Fortunately, 85% of reported problems that required an engineer were fixed on the first visit. This was thanks to the team of ‘weather watchers’ at CET, who prepare for particularly adverse weather conditions by re-arranging shift patterns to ensure that claims handlers are available when there is an expected surge in requests from homeowners.
Chris McLain, chief executive officer of CET, 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.”
