What Is Flood Re? A Clear Guide to the UK Flood Insurance Scheme

Flood Re is a UK government-backed reinsurance scheme that keeps home flood insurance available and affordable for households at higher flood risk. Set up under the Water Act 2014 and launched in April 2016, it lets insurers pass the flood element of an eligible home insurance policy into a central not-for-profit pool. It is scheduled to end in 2039.

You still buy buildings and contents cover from an insurer or broker in the normal way. Flood Re works behind the scenes and never sells policies directly, so most homeowners it helps never deal with it at all.

In 2025 UK insurers paid a record £6.1 billion in property claims, £312 million of it on domestic flooding, where the average payout reached £30,000, up 60% on the year before (ABI). Flood Re is the mechanism that keeps cover reaching the homes behind those figures.

What is Flood Re?

Flood Re is a not-for-profit reinsurance pool, owned and managed by the insurance industry and backed by government, that exists so households at significant flood risk can keep buying affordable flood cover. It charges insurers a fixed price to take on the flood risk of an eligible policy, so the insurer can offer cover it might otherwise price out of reach.

Flood Re does not replace your insurer. You deal entirely with your own provider, which sets your policy terms, your retail premium and handles any claim. Reinsurance simply means insurance for insurers: Flood Re carries the flood risk in the background so the retail market does not have to.

• Legal basis. Established under the Water Act 2014 and its supporting regulations.
• Launched. April 2016, replacing the earlier "Statement of Principles" agreement between government and insurers.
• Coverage. Operates across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Isle of Man and Channel Islands are excluded.
• Nature. A not-for-profit pool funded by a levy on UK home insurers, not a government hand-out. Gov.uk describes it as a joint industry and government initiative.

Why was Flood Re introduced?

Flood Re was introduced to stop high-risk homes being priced out of the flood insurance market as insurers moved towards fully risk-reflective pricing. Before it, the informal "Statement of Principles" had kept insurers offering cover to existing customers in flood-risk areas, but that arrangement was ending and placed no equivalent duty on price.

As pricing became more risk-based, some properties at high flood risk faced very high premiums, large flood excesses, or simply could not find cover. Flood Re was designed as a transitional fix: improve affordability now, and give the market until 2039 to adjust to risk-reflective pricing supported by better flood defences and property resilience. It was never meant to be permanent. The House of Commons Library sets out the same policy history in detail.

How does Flood Re work?

Flood Re sits between your insurer and the scheme, not between you and the scheme. When you buy an eligible policy, your insurer can pass ("cede") the flood part of it into the Flood Re pool for a fixed price, then handle everything else as normal: the rest of the cover, your premium and any claim. The four steps below show how a single policy moves through the scheme, and Flood Re's own explanation sets out the same mechanics.

1. You buy a policy. You take out buildings and/or contents insurance with an insurer or broker in the usual way.
2. The insurer cedes the flood risk. If the property is eligible, the insurer can transfer the flood element of the policy into Flood Re. Whether to do so is the insurer's commercial decision.
3. A fixed premium and excess apply. Flood Re charges the insurer a set reinsurance premium based on the property's Council Tax band, with a standardised flood excess inside the scheme.
4. Claims are paid and reimbursed. If you flood, your insurer manages and pays the claim as normal, and Flood Re reimburses it for the flood element. To you, it is an ordinary claim.

Because the insurer still sets your retail price and forms its own view of your risk, cover and premiums vary between providers. Where an insurer's assessment of a property looks wrong, such as a postcode-level score that does not match the building's actual exposure, an independent flood risk assessment for insurance can set out the real, property-level flood risk for an underwriter to weigh.

Flood Re eligibility

Flood Re eligibility is set by regulation, and not every property qualifies. In broad terms a home must be a UK residential property in Council Tax bands A to H, built before 1 January 2009, insured on an individual basis by the people who live there (or left unoccupied), in a building of no more than three units. Insurers then decide whether to cede an eligible policy into the scheme.

The table sets out the main dividing lines. For the full list, Flood Re's own eligibility criteria is the definitive source.

A few points catch people out. Residential buy-to-let held by an individual landlord can qualify, but a company-held or portfolio policy cannot. Tenants and individual leaseholders can insure their own contents through the scheme even where the freeholder's buildings cover cannot. And a "band" here refers to Council Tax, not flood risk: being in a high flood zone does not, by itself, decide eligibility.

The Flood Re 2009 rule explained

The most important line in the scheme is the 1 January 2009 cut-off: homes built on or after that date are excluded from Flood Re entirely. The aim is to avoid encouraging new building in flood-risk areas by promising publicly backed insurance behind it. Post-2009 homes must find flood cover on the open market, at whatever price the underlying risk commands.

For homeowners, that means insurability should never be assumed for a newer property in a flood-risk area. It has to be checked, not taken on trust. For landowners and developers, it draws a hard line between existing stock and new development: a scheme that stacks up on paper can still leave its future occupiers buying cover with no scheme support. Where a site is affected by river, coastal or surface water flooding, a robust flood risk assessment for planning is usually needed to show the development is safe for its lifetime and does not push risk elsewhere.

Flood Re, new builds and long-term development risk

Because Flood Re has never covered homes completed on or after 1 January 2009, long-term insurability has to be judged independently of the scheme for any new residential development. Open-market pricing may reflect climate-adjusted flood risk, and it can move as the 2039 wind-down approaches. That is a real consideration for anyone buying, promoting or building in a flood-risk area.

This is exactly the gap that prompted seventeen major insurers, lenders and flood charities to write jointly to ministers in March 2026, warning that weakening flood safeguards could leave some new homes uninsurable, and so unmortgageable and hard to sell. We cover that intervention in why the insurance industry is warning against the NPPF flood risk changes, and the knock-on effects for buyers in our guides to getting a mortgage on a flood-risk property, whether flood risk affects house prices and the wider housing-market picture.

Around 6.3 million properties in England are now at risk of flooding, about 4.6 million of them from surface water (Environment Agency): the fastest-growing source, and one that often sits outside the mapped flood zones planning has traditionally relied on.

For anyone buying a post-2009 home flagged for flood risk, an independent flood risk survey before purchase can establish the real, property-level position before exchange, including how it is likely to be viewed by lenders and insurers. Where planning is in play, the Sequential and Exception Tests decide whether a vulnerable use can go ahead at all; insurance availability is not a substitute for passing them.

How are Flood Re premiums calculated?

Flood Re prices the reinsurance it sells to insurers by Council Tax band, not by detailed property-level modelling. The insurer pays Flood Re a fixed premium for the flood element of an eligible policy, then sets the final retail price you actually pay. The band-based approach keeps the scheme simple, but it means the flood portion of your cover is priced off your Council Tax band rather than your specific building.

Two things follow. Similar homes can be quoted very different prices by different insurers, because each sets its own retail margin and view of non-flood risks. And being in Flood Re does not guarantee the cheapest quote; it underpins affordability structurally, but you should still compare policies. The band-based model is also central to the 2026 reforms described below, which rebalance what different bands pay.

Does Flood Re cover all types of flooding?

Flood Re relates to the flood peril inside a standard home insurance policy, which typically covers flooding from rivers, the sea and surface water. It does not create a separate flood policy; it reinsures the flood element of the cover your insurer already provides, so the exact scope depends on your policy wording.

Two limits matter. Flood Re addresses the cost of insurance, not the hazard itself. It does nothing to reduce the chance a property floods or the residual risk that remains behind defences. It is also not a route for a property that has been refused cover on non-flood grounds. If your concern is the underlying risk rather than the premium, that is a question for a flood risk assessment, not a reinsurance scheme.

What's changing: the 2026 Flood ReThink reforms and Flood Performance Certificates

On 2 July 2026, ten years after it launched, Flood Re set out a reform package called "Flood ReThink". Its headline is the Flood Performance Certificate (FPC), a rating of how well a home resists and recovers from flooding, much as an EPC rates energy efficiency, which the scheme will pilot with premium discounts for households that hold one. The reforms also cut the contents-only reinsurance premium for Council Tax bands A and B from £52 to £25 from April 2027, targeting lower-income households and renters.

The logic is a structural imbalance: in three of the last four years, Flood Re spent more repairing homes in bands G and H, under 4% of UK properties, than in bands A and B, which are around 45% of the housing stock. Alongside the FPC, the scheme is strengthening Build Back Better, which lets flooded households claim up to £10,000 towards resilience measures on top of repairing the damage. We explain the package in full in Flood ReThink 2026: Flood Performance Certificates explained.

One point is easy to miss: an FPC rates a home's resilience for insurance purposes. It is not a planning document and does not replace a site-specific flood risk assessment. And because Flood Re has never covered post-2009 homes, evidenced resilience is becoming a commercial asset for new builds that rely on the open market from day one, a theme we pick up in property flood resilience and planning.

When does Flood Re end?

Flood Re is scheduled to end in 2039. It was always designed as a transitional, 25-year scheme, with the intention that by that point the insurance market will have moved to more risk-reflective pricing, supported by stronger flood defences and wider property resilience.

2039 is a hard planning horizon, not a distant technicality. A home bought or built today will still be standing well beyond it, so its long-term insurability has to be judged on the open market, not on the assumption that Flood Re will always be there.

For most existing eligible homes the scheme is a here-and-now benefit. But no one, whether homeowner, buyer or developer, should assume it continues indefinitely, and the reforms above are partly about smoothing that transition rather than delaying it.

Flood Re and planning policy

Flood Re operates separately from the planning system, and available insurance is never evidence that development is acceptable in flood-risk terms. Excluding post-2009 homes deliberately reinforces the principle that new building in flood-prone areas should not lean on public reinsurance. The two systems interact, but the planning tests stand on their own.

England: the National Planning Policy Framework

In England, the National Planning Policy Framework requires authorities to apply the Sequential and, where needed, Exception Tests to steer development away from the highest-risk land. Development must be safe for its lifetime, must not increase flood risk elsewhere, and should reduce it where possible. Demonstrating that usually rests on a site-specific flood risk assessment, not on whether cover happens to be available.

Wales: TAN15

In Wales, Technical Advice Note 15 takes a precautionary approach, defining flood zones by risk, requiring justification for vulnerable development and building in climate-change allowances. Flood Re plays no part in that assessment: a post-2009 home permitted in a flood-risk area in Wales must still secure cover on the open market, and a compliant flood consequence assessment is usually central to showing the scheme is acceptable.

Flood Re is a valuable but temporary support for many existing homes at flood risk. It improves affordability, but it does nothing to remove the underlying hazard, and it leaves post-2009 homes to the open market. Whether you are buying a flagged property, insuring one an underwriter has loaded, or bringing a site forward for development, the decision rests on accurate, property-level evidence rather than on the scheme. If an insurer has flagged your home, our team can prepare an independent flood risk assessment for insurance, and one of our flood risk consultants will come back to you within the hour.