Government announces Flood Performance Certificate scheme to promote climate resilient communities

With a quarter of homes likely to be at risk of flooding by 2050, the Government has unveiled plans to help homeowners improve their property’s resilience to flooding in an effort to combat rising insurance premiums.

This week, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Flood Re (a joint Government and insurance industry initiative) announced plans for Flood Re to introduce a Flood Performance Certificate (FPC) scheme for domestic properties.

FPCs will provide information about flood risk and resilience in a standardised assessed format, similar to how Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) work for energy performance. The proposal is for FPCs to comprise a tiered three-level assessment framework rather than needing to rely solely on mandatory on-site physical assessors for every single home. This approach should avoid a bottleneck or shortage of “flood risk assessors” as desktop review and the use of automated data will primarily be used.

Flood Re’s ambition is for app-based flood self-assessments to become common place by expanding on the Government’s “check your flood risk” service. It has set out its intention to:

• Pilot a flood performance rating, which will assess the flood risk of a property due to exposure (from rivers, sea and surface water), physical characteristics (such as age, construction and lowest entry points) and existing resilience measures
• Run pilots to test FPCs during 2026 and 2027 starting in areas at risk of flooding; and
• Publish a final FPC template in due course

The government’s strategy is two-fold:

1. To standardise how property flood risk and resilience are assessed to provide homeowners, buyers, lenders and insurers with a standardised score of vulnerability to flooding.
2. To encourage alignment between insurers and lenders by providing access to more consistent and comparable information to support potential insurance rewards or discounts for recognised resilience improvements.

The Government’s goal is for FPCs to become a trusted source of information across the industry, similar to how Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) operate for energy.

The scheme aims to improve understanding and awareness of flood risk amongst property purchasers, alongside resilience options to influence improvements to be undertaken, with the aim of securing a lower flood rating and cheaper insurance premiums. The new FPC scheme is of relevance not just to property owners but also to insurers, developers and lenders across the industry.

How Hamlins can help

The Hamlins Real Estate team offers clients the full complement of real estate services, including commercial property, finance, litigation, construction and planning. We seek to obtain the best outcome possible for every client. If you would like to understand how we can help you to assess flood risk on your property transactions, please get in touch.