Sunday 01 August 2021
Disaster Fund makes sense
Scholz open to compulsory insurance after the flood
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The flood damage is being eliminated step by step, but many people are left with nothing because they were not insured adequately or not at all against flood damage. Chancellor candidate Scholz is open to both compulsory insurance and a pension fund.
After the flood disaster, Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz was basically open to mandatory natural hazard insurance. “The question is whether one would like to impose this obligation on all citizens. That would make the prices for housing more expensive again,” said the finance minister to the newspapers of the Funke media group. “First of all, this debate must be conducted by the federal states. If there is an agreement, the federal government will certainly not oppose it.”
Scholz also suggested setting up a disaster fund. “Basically, our country has to prepare for such situations in the future,” he said. “Climate change is man-made, and we must not leave those who are most severely affected by it alone with the consequences. Otherwise it will divide our society. I propose a pension fund that the federal government and all states organize together.”
Two weeks ago, at least 179 people died in the storm in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. After the severe flooding, a debate broke out about how such damage could be better insured. According to the insurance association GDV, only around 46 percent of the buildings in the Federal Republic are currently insured with natural hazard insurance, which would step in in the event of natural events such as heavy rain, floods or landslides.
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