Am I the only person who is tired of the "I have not got any house insurance" stories ?

Whilst the flooding is an absolute tragedy for so many people and for virtually everyone involved you feel absolutely enormous sympathy, surely I am not the only person who is slightly tiring of hearing hard luck stories about people who have no insurance ?

If they were people who were refused insurance because of the previous flooding or who could not afford it due to extreme poverty, then I could accept it. But in case after case on TV you see someone who has basically taken a risk, a gamble if you like, that they will not pay the £3.50 a week required to cover the contents of your house with an insurance company.

One couple on one news station stood their moaning about how they had lost everything whilst one of them was smoking a cigarette. I wish the reporter had pointed out that one less packet of fags a week and they could have insured their house properly. And on the BBC news at lunchtime they reported on a pub which had just had a £250,000 refit, but amazingly was not insured !

For me, before having Sky TV, a pet, the latest clothes, a night out, house insurance was an absolute priority, one of the first things on my list of things that I must have. For some people, this simply isn't the case and they see house insurance as something less important than having a cat to feed or having a plasma TV. They have made their choice, so they have to accept the consequences.

Insurance covers you against risk. I pay my insurance every month, as do millions of others, in the hope not of claiming, but hoping that I will never have to claim.

Either way, the people who are not insured have happily been saving themselves about £150 a year when others have been paying out for insurance. So let's not hear more sob stories please from people who could not be bothered. It's sad, but it was their choice.