Insurance and Property Flood Resilience

Residents who have been impacted by flooding often raise questions about home insurance and what they can do to protect their own properties.

Insurance

People who have been impacted by flooding, or whose properties have been impacted by flooding, can find it very difficult to find affordable home insurance with flood coverage. 

This page highlights some useful information residents should be aware of with regard to flooding and home insurance.

Flood Re

Flood Re is a government scheme which has made it easier for some people living in homes at risk of flooding to access affordable home insurance. To achieve this, the insurance companies that support Flood Re pay into the scheme to create a pot of money which can be used to pay the costs of insurance companies helping residents recover from a flood, allowing for more reasonable premiums to be offered. 

Flood Re was introduced in 2016 and runs until 2039. More information can be found on the Flood Re website. 

Build Back Better

Build Back Better is a Flood Re initiative where participating home insurers provide up to £10,000 in funding in addition to repair costs to improve the resilience of a resident’s property to the impact of flooding. This can be used to install Property Flood Resilience measures.

Residents should check if their policies or contact their insurer to ask if they have signed up to this initiative.

Property Flood Resilience

If your property has been impacted by flooding or your property is at risk of flooding, you may consider undertaking work to your property to make it more resilient or resistant to the impacts of the source of flooding relevant to your area. This work is called Property Flood Resilience.

Measures are typically broken down into two different categories:

• Resistance measures which prevent water entering the property.
• Resilience measures which minimise the impact of flooding and reduce the time it takes to recover from flooding.

The BluePages is a useful directory, hosted by the National Flood Forum, which provides detail on different types of Property Flood Resilience and details of contractors who may be able to advise you further.

If you are impacted by flooding, property owners should enquire with their insurance company to see if they are signed up to the Build Back Better Scheme as mentioned in the insurance section above.