Homes get a flood rating, and the claim decides what it is worth

The average flood insurance claim in the UK in 2025 was around £30,000. From this year, some homeowners will hold a certificate that tells them what is coming before the water does.

The Government and Flood Re confirmed on 13 October that pilots of Flood Performance Certificates begin this year in areas at risk of flooding, with more through 2027 and beyond. They test a Flood Performance Rating that breaks a property into exposure, characteristics and resistance, as set out in New pioneering certificates to help homeowners cut flood risk.

The ground underneath that has moved. Flood Re now counts 4.6 million properties in England at risk of surface water flooding, against 2.7 million at risk from rivers and the sea.

Protection is arriving faster than promised. The Government reports almost 62,000 properties better protected against an original target of 52,000, in New ‘one stop shop’ for flood preparedness launched.

Here is the detail worth sitting with. Flood Re says resilient repair can cut the cost of a flood repair by as much as 73 per cent in some cases, and can take a household’s time in alternative accommodation from 210 days down to none.

A certificate does not deliver any of that. A claim does, when someone agrees in the worst week of a family’s life to put the house back better than the one that flooded.

A rating tells a homeowner what their risk is called, and only a claim decides what it costs them.

Energy performance certificates turned a home’s efficiency into a number lenders and buyers could price. They never insulated a loft.

The wider reform package behind them more than halves premiums for contents cover in Council Tax Bands A and B, to £25 from April 2027, so the money is already moving. The certificates will be judged on whether a flooded household gets a better house back, not on how neatly the risk was labelled.