South Coast House Prices

New builds, flood risk and Flood Re

Updated 20 October 2026

Flood Re does not cover any home built from 1 January 2009. A new build near a river or the sea is insured at whatever price its own flood risk earns, with no scheme behind it.

What Flood Re does

Flood Re is a reinsurance scheme set up by the government and insurers under the Water Act 2014. An insurer can pass the flood part of a home insurance policy to Flood Re, and the price Flood Re charges the insurer is set by the home's council tax band rather than by its flood risk, so homes at high risk can still be insured at a price people can pay. It was designed with a fixed life: Flood Re says it will stop in 2039, when flood insurance returns to prices that reflect each home's risk.

Which homes it covers

Flood Re lists its rules. A home can be covered if it:

Building has to have finished before that date: a home started in 2008 and finished in 2009 does not qualify. A pre-2009 home that is knocked down and rebuilt stays eligible. Flood Re's guide for brokers gives the reason for the cut-off: so that the scheme "does not incentivise further house building in areas of high flood risk".

Why that matters on this coast

Since 2009, national planning policy has been meant to keep new homes out of flood risk or to make them safe where they do go. A new development in flood zone 2 or 3, or any site over one hectare, needs a site-specific flood risk assessment, and councils are told to steer homes to land at lower risk first. Many new estates on the south coast are on low-lying fields where the main risks are rain and groundwater rather than the sea, which the flood zones do not show; what flood zone 1 doesn't tell you explains the difference.

For a buyer, that means three things. The insurer prices a new build's flood risk directly. The planning file is the main public record of how the estate was meant to stay dry: its flood risk assessment, its drainage strategy and the planning conditions about drainage. And an estate's drainage, such as basins, swales and tanks, is often looked after by a management company or adopted later by the water company or council, so who maintains it, and who pays, matters.

How to check a new build before you buy

1. Look up the exact address on the government's long-term flood risk service: rivers and the sea, surface water, and reservoirs. A brand new address may not be listed yet; use a neighbouring one. 2. Find the planning application on the council's planning website and open the flood risk assessment and the drainage strategy. Read the conditions on the decision notice that mention drainage, and check whether the council has signed them off: each one usually has its own application to "discharge" it. 3. Ask who will maintain the drainage basins and pipes, whether the water company or council has adopted them yet, and what the estate charge covers. 4. Ask an insurer or broker for a quote before you exchange contracts, giving the year the home was built. 5. For a home built before 2009, Flood Re's eligibility tool says whether it can be covered.

Each place page on this site gives the village's flood zones, surface-water risk, future flood risk and how often flood warnings have been issued, from the Environment Agency's own records.

Sources