According to the government announcement published on GOV.UK on 13 October 2026, ministers and Flood Re will begin piloting Flood Performance Certificates in England to give homeowners a clearer assessment of flood risk at property level. The scheme is intended to create a single, recognisable format for flood information, in much the same way that Energy Performance Certificates are used to summarise energy efficiency. The immediate policy aim is practical as well as informational. By bringing risk and resilience measures into one standard document, the pilot is designed to move households from general awareness of flooding to decisions about protection, maintenance and future investment.
The proposed certificates will test a Flood Performance Rating that separates risk into categories including exposure, property characteristics and resistance measures. The government said the assessment will draw on information already used in the Check Your Flood Risk service, including flood threats from rivers and surface water. That is significant because flood risk is often described through several different data sources, insurer models and local accounts. A standard rating would not remove that complexity, but it could give homeowners, insurers and lenders a more consistent starting point when assessing a property.
Flood Re is due to start pilot work in 2026 in areas at flood risk, with a wider set of trials planned through 2027 and beyond. The tests will examine how resilience information is gathered, how it is explained to householders, and whether the format is useful enough for insurers and mortgage lenders to recognise in routine decisions. Under the model set out in the announcement, the certificate would record measures already installed and indicate where further action is needed. Examples cited by the government include self-closing air bricks, flood barriers, water-resilient flooring and flood-resilient kitchens, all intended to reduce damage and speed recovery after a flood.
Emma Hardy, the Floods Minister, presented the certificates as a household preparedness tool linked to wider public awareness during Flood Action Week. In the government's account, the purpose is to give people one trusted source of information on the risks facing their home and the steps available to improve resilience. Flood Re framed the pilot in similar terms but with a longer-term market objective. Chief executive Perry Thomas said the aim is to make app-based flood self-assessment more routine so that households can understand their own risk, take action and, over time, have those actions recognised by insurers.
The market interest extends beyond insurance alone. Aviva said stronger household resilience will matter to insurers, developers and lenders as flood exposure rises, and warned that by 2050 as many as a quarter of homes could be at risk of flooding. The insurer also noted that newer homes are outside the Flood Re scheme, which increases the importance of resilience measures in keeping cover available and affordable. Nationwide's property risk team said a standardised certificate could help bring more consistent information into housing decisions. For lenders, that could affect how flood exposure is understood at application stage; for homeowners, it may shape renovation choices, insurance conversations and, eventually, resale expectations.
The National Flood Forum welcomed the pilots but stressed the need to test how the certificates work in practice for households that actually experience flooding. That point matters for policy design: a document can only influence outcomes if the scoring system is intelligible, trusted and closely matched to the conditions people face on the ground. At this stage, the certificates remain a pilot rather than a national requirement. The government and Flood Re are still testing whether resilience information can be assessed and recognised in a way that is credible across homeowners, insurers and lenders.
The announcement also sits within a broader package on flood insurance and resilience. Earlier in 2026, the government and Flood Re set out plans intended to keep flood insurance fair, affordable and financially sustainable, including a cut in contents cover premiums for Council Tax Bands A and B to £25 from April 2027, with insurers expected to pass the reduction on to customers. Taken together, the policy direction is clear. Ministers want better property-level risk data to support household action, while the insurance market wants clearer evidence that resilience work has been carried out. The success of the pilot will depend on whether Flood Performance Certificates become more than an information product and start to influence pricing, lending and recovery costs in a measurable way.
The launch coincides with the Environment Agency's Flood Action Week, running from 12 to 18 October 2026. The campaign asks households to check local risk, prepare a flood plan and sign up for warnings, while the Environment Agency says it has 260 mobile pumps, including 17 ultra-high-volume units, 25 kilometres of temporary barriers and a round-the-clock emergency response with 600 people on call at any one time. That operational detail shows where the certificate pilot fits. Flood Performance Certificates are not being presented as a substitute for flood defences or emergency response; they are being introduced as a household-facing tool within a wider resilience programme that combines public warning systems, insurer participation and practical property adaptation.