Home Insurance Will be a Struggle for Natural Disaster Victims

Gerry Tyack is no stranger to a challenge. He served with the Royal Air Force in the Second World War, having lied about his age to join up as a 16-year-old in 1939. After working as a fitter on Wellington bombers, he joined a mobile radar unit driving deep into Germany to pinpoint bomber targets. More recently, Gerry combined a career as a garage owner with a weekend passion for motor racing. In the Sixties and Seventies he set international hill-climb and sprint records in a series of Porsche, BMW and Brabham cars. But Gerry’s latest challenge has been coping with the aftermath of last summer’s flooding. His Cotswold stone home in the town of Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, was badly affected as 18 inches of water swept through the ground floor. The water also flooded into the Wellington Aviation Museum that Gerry, 84, founded in former school rooms adjoining his home in 1990 as a tribute to the RAF personnel who trained at the wartime air base in Moreton-in-Marsh. Unique books, documents and pictures were ruined. Gerry says: ‘The water turned these records into an unidentifiable pulp. ‘ Fortunately, the building itself was almost unscathed. Gerry says: ‘I had every reason to close the museum for good after the floods, but something kept me going. ‘ After some disinfecting and cleaning, the museum was open again within a fortnight. But repairing Gerry’s house took longer. Plaster had to be stripped off the walls, warped floors needed to be ripped up and the kitchen required a complete rebuild. Gerry parked a caravan in his garden to act as a sitting room and kitchen while the repairs were under way. His insurer, NFU Mutual, paid