Flood Insurance: How Cover Works and What Flood Re Does (England & Wales)

How flood insurance works, who can use Flood Re, what to check before you buy and how to find cover for a higher-risk home. England & Wales guide.

Flood insurance title card with resilience sketches

In the UK, flood cover is normally part of ordinary buildings and contents insurance. It isn’t a separate product you buy on its own. If the home is in a high-risk area, cover can be harder to find or dearer, and that is where Flood Re comes in. It is a government and industry scheme that helps eligible homes get affordable flood cover, but it doesn’t suit every property. If you’re buying, check the flood picture and the insurance position before you offer, not after.

TL;DR

Flood cover usually comes bundled into home insurance. Ask any insurer to confirm it in writing before you rely on it.
Flood Re is not an insurer. It is a reinsurance scheme your insurer uses behind the scenes, and it only covers homes in Council Tax bands A to G that were added to the valuation list before 1 January 2009.
Price comparison sites are not always the best route for flood-prone homes. The ABI suggests contacting insurers directly or using a specialist broker.
Official flood maps show an area’s long-term risk, not the condition of one house. Check both the map and the street’s flood history.
Flood Re is due to wind down by 2039, so premiums for high-risk homes are expected to move towards the real level of risk.

How flood insurance works in the UK
What Flood Re is, and what it isn’t
Check the flood picture before you check the premium
How to find cover when the property is higher risk
Worked example: two houses on the same road
Our view on flood insurance and house buying
Getting the area facts before you offer
A short buyer’s checklist
FAQ
Sources

How flood insurance works in the UK

There is no separate “flood insurance” policy for most households. Flooding is one of the insured events, alongside fire, storms and burst pipes, in a standard buildings and contents policy. The ABI’s claims guidance lists flooding among the perils to report to your insurer as soon as possible.

Two parts matter:

Buildings cover pays for the structure: walls, floors, fixed kitchen and bathroom, and so on.
Contents cover pays for what you’d take with you if you moved: furniture, electronics, clothes.

If you own the home, you need buildings cover, and your mortgage lender will almost certainly require it. If you rent, contents cover is your own call, because the landlord insures the building.

Home insurance is also not a maintenance contract. The ABI says it covers sudden and unexpected events, not wear and tear, poor maintenance or long-standing problems. A flooded cellar that was already damp for years may be argued over. Read the exclusions and the excess before you sign.

What Flood Re is, and what it isn’t

Flood Re is the term most people stumble on once they start searching. In plain terms:

It is a joint initiative between government and the insurance industry, set up to promote affordable and available cover for UK households at high flood risk.
It is not an insurer. You can’t buy a policy from it. You buy from a normal insurer, and that insurer can pass the flood part of your policy to Flood Re for a fixed price.
Insurers still set their own prices for the rest of the policy and still handle claims as normal.
It is funded by a levy on home insurers and by the premiums insurers pay when they pass policies in. The government’s Flood Re page gives the levy as £180 million a year.
Flood Re applies a £250 reinsurance excess per flood claim, but insurers may add their own excess on top, so check your policy wording.

The scheme launched in April 2016 and is planned to run until 2039. It is explicitly temporary. Its job is to ease the market towards pricing that reflects actual risk, which is not the same as promising cheap flood cover forever.

Which homes are eligible

The rules are tied to the property, not to you. According to the government’s scope document for the scheme, a home generally needs:

A Council Tax band from A to G.
Residential use.
To have been added to the Council Tax valuation list before 1 January 2009.

Band H properties, homes built after that date and most blocks with more than three flats are left out. The same document says the scheme is aimed at the 1 to 2% of households at greatest flood risk.

There is a wrinkle for homes finished just before the cut-off. Flood Re’s own FAQ says a home completed in 2008 but banded in 2009 may still qualify if there’s evidence it was lived in before January 2009, and that a utility bill may help prove it.

If you’re buying a newer flat or a house built since 2009, don’t assume Flood Re will be there as a safety net. That doesn’t mean it will be uninsurable, only that you should ask insurers early.

Check the flood picture before you check the premium

The sensible order for a buyer is: find out how the property sits against flood risk, then ask what that means for cover. Insurance quotes don’t tell you much about the place itself.

What the official map tells you, and what it doesn’t

The government’s long-term flood risk service covers England, and Wales has its own Flood Risk Assessment Wales map. Flood Zone 3 means an annual chance of river flooding of 1% (1 in 100) or more, or 0.5% (1 in 200) or more from the sea. The service is a strategic overview. It doesn’t account for things like internal floor levels or localised drainage, so it can’t judge one particular house.

That gap is why we suggest two extra checks:

Ask the seller directly whether the property has ever flooded, and whether any insurance claim was made. You can also ask whether the current policy has any special terms.
Look at the street, not just the postcode. A road at the bottom of a slope can behave very differently from a neighbouring one.

We’ve written step-by-step guides to checking whether a property is in a flood zone and to reading flood risk data as a homebuyer, and an explainer on whether flood risk data is public record. They’re worth a read before you book a viewing for a house near a river or on a floodplain.

Don’t rely on the seller’s quote

If the seller says their premium is low, that doesn’t mean yours will be. The scheme’s eligibility rules attach to the property, but insurers underwrite the person and the claims history too. When you apply, declare the full flood and claims history. Leaving it out is how a later claim gets refused.

How to find cover when the property is higher risk

A practical route, in order:

Get the property’s details to hand. Address, build year, Council Tax band, and any flood history you’ve been told about.
Contact insurers directly. The ABI says price comparison websites are not always the best place to buy flood insurance and suggests contacting companies directly or speaking to an insurance broker.
Try a specialist broker. GOV.UK points to brokers who specialise in properties at flood risk, and to advice from the National Flood Forum and MoneyHelper.
Compare more than the price. Look at the flood excess, any sub-limits, how long the policy takes to reinstate you, and whether it offers Build Back Better.
Ask before you exchange, not after. If you can’t get buildings cover at a sensible price, that’s information about the purchase. Your lender will usually insist on buildings insurance from exchange of contracts, so don’t leave it until the last week.

A caution on the legal side: any question about what your mortgage lender requires, or whether a policy meets those conditions, belongs with your lender or mortgage adviser. Questions about contracts and searches belong with your conveyancer.

Build Back Better and resilience

If a home has flooded, ask whether the insurer offers “Build Back Better”. GOV.UK says it can provide up to £10,000 in additional funding during repairs to install property-level resilience, such as flood doors, non-return valves or raised sockets. Flood Re adds that what is included is agreed between the insurer and the customer, because each home needs something different.

Flood resilience measures funded during repairs

With Flood Re due to end, Flood Re’s own annual report describes a move to risk-reflective pricing. In practice, that means the homes most exposed to flooding are the ones that gain most from resilience work now.

While you’re reviewing a property’s protections generally, it can help to look at the non-flood side too. This guide on fire escape and access control checks for UK properties is a useful companion read, although it’s about security and fire, not flooding.

Worked example: two houses on the same road

Here is an invented illustration, not a real case, to show how the rules bite.

House A is a 1930s terrace in Council Tax band C. House B is a 2015 new-build at the end of the same road, in band D. Both are in an area with a flood history.

House A is likely to meet the age and band conditions for Flood Re, so insurers can pass its flood risk into the scheme.
House B was added to the valuation list after 1 January 2009, so it is generally outside the scheme. An insurer must price its flood risk on its own, and some may decline or load the premium.

The lesson: two nearly identical addresses can face different insurance outcomes. Ask about the specific property, not the street.

Our view on flood insurance and house buying

We look at flood risk every day, and we see the same mistake repeatedly. Buyers treat “is it in a flood zone?” as a yes or no question. It isn’t. A home in Zone 1 can still have a flooded street nearby from surface water, and a home in Zone 3 can have defences, high floor levels and a perfectly ordinary premium.

Our view on flood insurance and house buying — overview diagram

The better question is: what do the official records say about this postcode, what has actually happened here, and what will it cost to cover? Flood Re has made a lot of older homes insurable, and it deserves credit for that. But it ends in 2039, it excludes newer homes, and it doesn’t help with anything else the home might hide.

Our reports are official data read by a person, not a survey and not advice. They don’t tell you whether a house will flood, and they don’t replace an insurer’s quote, a surveyor or a conveyancer. What they can do is give you the flood detail and recorded floods for that postcode before you offer. For anything about cover, the insurer or a broker has the last word.

— Gracie C

Getting the area facts before you offer

We sell plain-English area reports for any postcode in England and Wales only (not Scotland or Northern Ireland, even though Flood Re itself covers the whole UK). They are made from official data, and they cover flood detail and recorded floods, crime, noise, nuisance sites, planning next door, broadband and commute.

The Instant Report costs £9. It is generated from the postcode and checked by a review agent, not read by a person, with the PDF in minutes.
The Area Report costs from £19. A named person reads it against your own written brief and deal-breakers, with the PDF within one working day.
The Shortlist Duel compares two areas head to head.
The Full + Live Market report adds live comparables, negotiating position, and rent and yield.

You can start with the free area check, or see the full range of reports. Our reports don’t check building condition, damp or subsidence, they don’t read legal title or searches, and they aren’t a lending valuation or insurance advice.

If you want to understand the broader picture first, our pieces on identifying hidden property risks before you offer and a due diligence checklist for buyers are a good start.

A short buyer’s checklist

Check the property on the government’s flood map for England, or the Welsh map if it’s in Wales.
Ask the seller about past flooding and past claims, and keep the answer in writing.
Find the Council Tax band and the build year.
Get buildings insurance quotes direct from insurers or through a specialist broker before you commit.
Compare excess levels, not just the premium.
Raise anything unclear with your conveyancer and your mortgage adviser.
If you’re buying a flood-hit home, ask the insurer about Build Back Better after any claim.

FAQ

What is Flood Re?

Flood Re is a reinsurance scheme run jointly by government and the insurance industry. It isn’t an insurer: your own insurer can pass the flood part of an eligible policy to it for a fixed price. That helps keep cover more affordable for homes at higher risk. It is planned to run until 2039.

Can I get flood insurance if my home was built after 2009?

Generally, new homes fall outside Flood Re, so an insurer prices the flood risk on its own. Many newer homes sit in low-risk spots and are insured as normal. If yours is in a higher-risk area, contact insurers directly or use a broker who specialises in flood-risk properties.

Do price comparison sites cover flood-prone homes?

Not always well. The ABI says comparison sites aren’t always the best place to buy flood insurance. It suggests contacting insurers directly or speaking to a broker, who can check that the policy truly covers your risk and that the excess is realistic.

Is my house in a flood zone?

Use the government’s long-term flood risk service for England or the Flood Risk Assessment Wales map. They show area-level risk, not one house’s floor levels or drainage, so also ask the seller about past floods. A postcode-level report can add recorded flood detail.

Sources

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