Is Flood Re bringing the price of insurance down for those at risk of floods?

Popular FAQs

• Flood Re eligibility criteria

  Qualifying policies which may be ceded to Flood Re

  Properties will be eligible only if they meet all of the following criteria:

  1. They are covered by an insurance contract which is held in the name of, or on trust for, one or more individuals or by the personal representative of an individual;
  2. The holder of the policy, or their immediate family, must live in the property for some or all of the time (whether or not with others) or the property must be unoccupied;
  3. They have a domestic Council Tax band A to H (or equivalent);
  4. They are used for private, residential purposes;
  5. They are a single residential unit or a building comprising of two or three residential units;
  6. They are insured on an individual basis or have an individual premium;
  7. They were built before 1st January 2009 (if a home is built before 1^stJanuary 2009 but then demolished and rebuilt, the new home is still eligible); and
  8. They are located within the UK comprising England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (excluding the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands)

  We expect that the following properties will be eligible for buildings or combined cover provided they also meet the criteria 1-8 above:

  1. Bed and breakfast premises paying Council Tax and insured under a home insurance contract;
  2. Farmhouse dwellings and cottages. Where farmhouse dwellings are included in a commercial line policy, provided the insurer can split out the dwelling element (which meets the criteria 1-8 (inclusive) above), that part of the risk can be ceded to Flood Re;
  3. Holiday/Second Homes;
  4. Properties occupied by home workers;
  5. Individual leaseholders protecting their own property/flat;
  6. Leasehold blocks if they contain 3 units or fewer and the freeholder(s) lives in one of the units to be insured;
  7. Single unit leasehold properties where the leaseholder insures the structure of the property
  8. Residential ‘buy to let’ properties
  9. Static Caravans/homes if in personal ownership;

  Flood Re will also cover a tenant’s / individual’s contents in rented or leasehold properties even where the buildings risk would not be eligible  (such as in large blocks of flats) provided the policy and the property it relates to fulfil the criteria 1-8 above.

  Properties which we would not expect to fulfil the eligibility criteria for buildings or combined cover include:

  1. Bed and breakfast premises paying business rates;
  2. Blocks of more than three residential flats;
  3. Company houses/flats;
  4. Properties covered by contingent buildings policies (e.g. held by banks);
  5. Farm outbuildings;
  6. Properties used by freeholders/leaseholders in deriving commercial income insuring blocks/large numbers of properties in a portfolio;
  7. Housing association’s residential properties;
  8. Multi-use properties under commercial or private ownership;
  9. Residential ‘buy to let’ (which do not meet the criteria 1-8 (inclusive) above);
  10. Social housing properties; (eligible for Contents cover but not eligible for Buildings cover);
  11. Static caravan site owners (for commercial gain).

• Does my policy include Build Back Better?

  Please speak to your broker or insurer to ensure that BBB is included in your home insurance policy before committing to buy. If you buy insurance through an insurance intermediary it is possible that BBB might not apply. The safest way to be sure of benefitting from BBB is to buy direct from one of our live BBB insurers.

  You can see which insurers are currently offering BBB and which are committed to offering it in the future but are yet to complete the necessary steps to be able to do so on our BBB page.

• What is Build Back Better?

  ‘Build Back Better’ (BBB) is the process of putting in place measures that will make a home more resistant or resilient to flooding in the future.

  Flood Re’s proposition will enable the reimbursement (up to a limit of £10,000) of costs associated with Building Back Better as part of a flood claim, over and above work to repair damage and loss caused by a flood.

  This can include carrying out surveys to understand the flood risk and potential mitigation, the addition of flood resistance measures such as flood doors, and flood resilience measures such as the replacement of damaged parts of the home with more flood resilient materials such as hard floors.

• Will I receive the full £10K?

  Not necessarily – each Insurer sets their own limit.  Check with your Insurer to see how much you might be entitled to, and check if any other criteria also apply.

• How does it benefit consumers?

  BBB can mean less upheaval and stress, and lower costs if a household floods after resilience measures have been installed.  It can mean not having to move out of your property at all after a flood, or moving back in much more quickly.

• How does it work in practice?

  Insurers handle BBB claims in different ways. However, in general when someone floods who has an insurance policy that offers BBB, the insurer will work with their customer to assess if additional resilience measures would benefit their home should they be flooded again.

  Householders will have the choice whether to accept the extra resilience measures.