How to get home insurance on a flood-risk property

First, understand what's working in your favour: Flood Re

Flood Re is a UK scheme, funded by a levy on all home insurers, that caps the flood-risk portion of your premium so that flood-risk homes can be insured at close to normal rates. You don't buy it directly and you won't see it on a comparison site — instead, your insurer quietly passes the flood part of your policy into the scheme behind the scenes.

That means the single most useful thing to know is whether your property qualifies, because if it does, dozens of mainstream insurers can suddenly offer you a sensible price. The main catch: Flood Re excludes homes built after 1 January 2009, and several other categories. Check whether your property qualifies for Flood Re →

Use a specialist broker, not a comparison site

Price comparison sites are built for standard homes. Feed them a flood-risk address and they either inflate the premium to cover their uncertainty or drop you entirely. A broker who specialises in non-standard and flood-risk properties does the opposite: they know which insurers use Flood Re well, which underwriters price flood risk fairly, and how to present your property in the best light.

The trustworthy way to find one is the British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA) “Find Insurance” service, which can point you to brokers who handle hard-to-place flood risks. It costs nothing to ask, and a good broker frequently finds cover that no comparison site would show you.

The documents that lower your premium

Insurers price flood risk on incomplete information by default — and uncertainty makes premiums go up. Giving them better, property-specific evidence often brings the price down:

• A clean flood history — if the property has never actually flooded, say so; insurers price recorded claims, not just map zones
• A property-level flood report (for example a JBA or similar address-level assessment) — often more favourable than the broad postcode model an insurer would otherwise use
• Evidence of flood defences — nearby Environment Agency schemes, or property-level protection you've fitted
• Ground-floor levels and layout — a raised threshold or living space above ground level genuinely reduces risk and insurers will factor it in

How to cut the premium further

Beyond the paperwork, physical resilience measures both reduce your risk and, with many insurers, your price:

• Flood barriers and flood doors at vulnerable entry points
• Non-return valves on drains and toilets to stop water backing up
• Raised electrics, sockets and boiler — limits damage and speeds recovery
• Air-brick covers and sump pumps for properties at recurring risk

Some households can get help with these through the government's property flood resilience grants, typically made available after a flood event. A higher voluntary excess on non-flood perils can also trim the premium without touching your flood protection.

The trap to watch: the flood excess

When you do get a quote, read the flood excess before you celebrate the premium. A cheap-looking policy with a £10,000 flood excess is not really flood cover — the first £10,000 of any flood claim is yours to pay, and a serious flood easily costs more than that to put right. A Flood Re-backed policy, by contrast, caps the flood excess at a modest fixed amount. The premium and the excess have to be judged together.

If you're buying, sort this before you exchange

Insurability isn't just a running cost — it affects whether you can buy at all. Mortgage lenders require buildings insurance to be in place from exchange of contracts, so if a property can't be insured at a sensible price, the purchase itself can stall. See how flood risk affects your mortgage and resale → Get an actual quote on the specific address early — not an estimate — so there are no surprises on completion day.

The short version

• Affordable cover is usually still possible for flood-risk homes — just not via comparison sites
• Check Flood Re eligibility first; if the home qualifies, mainstream insurers can price it normally
• Use a specialist broker (BIBA's “Find Insurance” service is the trusted route) for anything hard to place
• Property-specific evidence — clean flood history, address-level reports, resilience measures — lowers the price
• Judge the flood excess, not just the premium; a huge excess is not real cover
• Buying? Get a real quote on the address before exchange, because lenders require insurance from that point