Standing half-way up the staircase, I looked down at my husband, Rob, who was ankle-deep in water in our hallway.
Fearful the rising water could affect the electrics at any moment, I realised it was time to evacuate our children.
It was late June on a Friday night and our home in Solihull, West Midlands, had been flooded by a freak storm. The battle to prevent it zapped all our energy. But our fight was far from over, and no one dared exhale until we knew what our insurer had to say.
Escape: Laura Shannon and daughters Orlagh, left, and Maddie, were forced to flee their home in Solihull after a freak storm sparked flash floods
Every pound of damage needed to be meticulously totted up.
I have no idea exactly how much it will cost to replace each item lost and every square foot of damaged flooring, but we’re looking at a five-figure bill.
And I have learned to my cost (literally) that even with home insurance, you can still end up thousands of pounds out of pocket.
Every year, scores of homeowners are caught out by insurance quirks, often buried in the small print. This was my year to be snared.
I had paid about £300 for home contents and buildings cover with HomeProtect. As a personal finance journalist, I was careful to check the policy for glaring loopholes.
I knew the excess (what we’d have to pay before our insurer stepped in) was a couple of hundred pounds. But, in fact, there was also a separate £2,500 compulsory flooding excess, which, when added to the £250 voluntary excess for the building cover, meant I was down £2,750 before we even started the clean-up.
This figure is perfectly visible on my policy document, but I hadn’t given it a second thought. We don’t live near water, our home is raised above ground level, and it has never flooded before.
Yet floods are becoming increasingly common, with one in six homes in the UK now at risk. Just last month the Government announced a record £5.2 billion investment in flood defences over the next six years. A new flood insurance directory will also be launched this autumn to help more homeowners find cover.
The Met Office says that rainfall exceeding 30mm per hour means flash flooding is likely. At its worst moment, rainfall reached 165 mm per hour over my house. Later, in just one hour, 60 mm cascaded down.
Our daughters, Orlagh, four, and Maddie, one, were asleep upstairs at the time, unaware of their parents’ frantic bid to save the family belongings.
We put every towel we own against doors and moved stores of fresh water and food upstairs in case we became trapped with an infected water supply.
Swamped: The property, which had never flooded before and is not near any rivers, lakes or the sea, and raised above ground level, was left under several feet of water
My husband fought valiantly against a tide — strong enough to carry a tree stump from the back of our garden to our driveway — to rip off the side-gate and alleviate pressure from the swell in our garden.
With cut and bruised legs, he then waded through waist-height water to check on elderly neighbours.
The fire service and police arrived. One neighbour had to be rescued by boat.
We had sprung into action a little before 9pm. By midnight, with my toddler strapped to my back, I was wading out to my parents’ car on higher ground.
It was a surreal moment. Another came soon after, when I fell victim to yet more insurance small print.
The definition of ‘outbuilding’, which in my mind meant the shed, also includes garden fences, driveways and patios, we were told.
This meant the £7,500 of cover we had deemed more than adequate left us under-insured.
As a result, our insurer will only cover about half of any claim for a deck clean or a new shed, leaving us further out of pocket.
The house always wins, it seems. The insurer’s that is.
Our separate flood excess of £2,500 is also deemed very high compared with other policies.
Even homes in flood risk areas covered under the Government’s Flood Re scheme, which aims to make cover affordable, are typically charged an excess of about £250, according to Brian Brown, of data analysts Defaqto.
Yet we were fortunate in some ways as many cheaper insurers do not cover flooding at all.
Others are caught out because they fail to tell their insurers about the flood immediately, and before carrying out repairs. Thankfully I did this.
It’s also important to take photos of damage as it happens. But even having done things right, I almost certainly face a costly renewal premium.
Customers can pay nearly a fifth more for home insurance for living close to water. An average policy is about £193 a year for living within 150 metres of water, according to price comparison website GoCompare. Those more than 400 metres away pay an average £161.
And once a flood has occurred, the average policy can more than double from £132 to £313 a year, Moneysupermarket says.
Roger Flaxman, of insurance disputes specialist Flaxman Partners, adds: ‘We’re going to go through a winter where flooding could become more prolific. Check whether flooding is included or excluded in your policy. If not, you need to buy it.’
- Sign up for flood warnings at gov.uk/sign-up-for-flood-warnings