Flood Performance Certificates will be tested in English areas at risk of flooding, in a new programme intended to give householders, insurers and lenders more consistent information about a property’s exposure and resilience. Flood Re says work on pilots will begin in 2026, with additional trials planned through 2027 and beyond.
The certificates are not yet a finished product. The pilot phase is designed to test how information about flood risk and protective measures can be assessed and presented, and whether it is useful to the people expected to use it. The final template, design and format are still being developed.
What the certificates are intended to show
A proposed Flood Performance Rating would break information into areas including a property’s exposure to flooding, its characteristics and its resistance to water. The approach is intended to be more detailed than a single overall score. Flood risk information already available through the government’s Check Your Flood Risk service is expected to inform the assessment, including river and surface-water risks.
The certificate is also intended to reflect resilience measures already taken and identify where further action might help. Examples include flood barriers, self-closing air bricks, water-resistant flooring and flood-resilient kitchens. The purpose is to help owners understand vulnerabilities and practical options, rather than to certify that a home is safe from flooding.
How a property is assessed, how the information is communicated and how resilience work is recognised are among the questions the pilots will test. The programme is being developed with homeowners, insurers and lenders. A standardised approach could make it easier for different users to compare information about a home, but the trial announcement does not establish how assessments will be conducted, who will pay for them or how widely they will be available.
Insurance effects remain uncertain
Flood Re’s longer-term ambition is for app-based self-assessments to become routine and for insurers eventually to recognise steps taken to improve a property’s resilience. The announcement presents this as a direction of travel, not a change to premiums now. It does not promise that receiving a certificate or installing a particular measure will reduce an individual household’s insurance price, guarantee cover or make an insurer accept a risk.
The government says more consistent information could support insurers and lenders, and that the affordability or availability of insurance might be affected where resilience improvements are sufficient to change an insurer’s assessment of risk. That outcome depends on how insurers use the information and on the evidence gathered through the pilots.
The initiative sits alongside separate changes to Flood Re support. From April 2027, premiums charged by Flood Re for contents-only policies in Council Tax Bands A and B are due to fall from £52 to £25, with insurers expected to pass the savings on to customers. That planned reduction is distinct from the certificate pilots and should not be read as a promised certificate-linked discount.
A trial before any settled national format
Flood Re is developing the certificates as part of its wider focus on property-level resilience and the planned transition of the insurance market ahead of the scheme’s scheduled end in 2039. The pilots are expected to expand beyond their initial 2026 phase, but no final national rollout timetable or definitive certificate format has been set out.
For households in flood-prone areas, the immediate development is therefore a test of how risk and resilience information might be brought together, rather than a new service that is already available to every homeowner. The trials will need to establish whether the proposed categories are understandable, sufficiently reliable and practical for homeowners as well as the insurance and lending sectors. Until the design and use are settled, the certificate’s eventual effect on decisions about property and cover remains open.
