Yes,, your housing developers are better than ours, because they don't sell the worst possible product at the highest possible price, to the most vulnerable population. Or... are our capitalists better than yours?

>yes, we do get severe storms here in Britain,

Get back to me when class four (winds between 130-156 mph) hurricane with a 10 foot tidal surge (10 foot above the high tide mark) sweeps across one of your outlying islands. That levels anything that isn't built with reinforced concrete.

By the time a hurricane gets to Britain, it's a "tropical storm." That's what is also classified as a severe thunderstorm. You might get the wimpy class one hurricane (winds above 70 mph).

Should I mention I spent too much time in Florida? On average every town in Florida gets hit by a hurricane every five years. One year Pensacola, FL, got two hurricanes in one month.

With global warming, I left Florida for the mountains. It was a case of hurricanes getting bigger and stronger. Here in Senca, South Carolina we get severe thunderstorms that might loosen enough shingles to bring in a roofer.

As for those worried about hurricanes it's required to have both flood and wind damage coverage. Otherwise the Good Hands insurance company will drop you.

I think you will find that "acts of god" disappeared from insurance policies years ago

Most American building policies are written as a "named exclusion" policy, meaning unless it is specifically listed then it's covered up to the limit of the policy. The list is pretty short (flood, earthquake, acts of war, intentional acts, a couple other things) so maybe ours is a better deal than Britain's.