Aviva chief warns flood risk could leave some new homes uninsurable

Aviva chief executive Amanda Blanc has warned that homes being built in flood-risk areas of England could become uninsurable in the future, raising questions about where new housing is placed as flood exposure grows. In an interview reported by the BBC, she said England was ‘for sure’ building homes that might reach that point. Her warning concerns a possible future outcome; it does not mean those homes are uninsurable now.

Blanc told the BBC that, if current building patterns continue, 115,000 new homes will be built in flood zones over the next decade. ‘That doesn't seem to me to make sense. We need to think about where those homes are being built,’ she said. The estimate and the concern about future insurance availability are Blanc’s statements, rather than a finding that every one of those homes will lose cover.

What Aviva’s figures show

The BBC reported that Aviva’s analysis found one in nine homes built in England between 2022 and 2024 were at medium or high risk of flooding. Aviva’s published figures put that at 43,937 of 396,602 new homes recorded over those three years. Its analysis counted 101,657 of the homes as having some flood risk, a broader measure than the medium-or-high-risk category.

Aviva said it combined Ordnance Survey AddressBase records for new homes with Environment Agency flood-risk data at constituency level. According to the company, the work took place in December 2025 and January 2026 using agency datasets first published in January 2025. Those details describe how Aviva assessed exposure; they do not predict an insurance decision for any individual property.

The wider flood-risk picture

The Environment Agency says around 6.3 million homes and businesses in England are in areas at risk from rivers, the sea, surface water or a combination of sources. It describes the present exposure as affecting about one in five homes and says the share could rise to one in four by mid-century because of climate change. Some properties face more than one type of flood risk.

The agency cautions against treating its latest national assessment as directly comparable with earlier versions, because improved data and modelling changed the picture it can measure. For surface-water flooding in particular, it says most of the change in the recorded number of properties at risk reflects better information and technology, rather than an equivalent real-world increase. That distinction matters when assessing claims about how quickly risk is changing.

In its report covering the year to 31 March 2025, the Environment Agency also recorded 301 homes granted planning permission contrary to its flood-risk advice among decisions it tracked. That figure describes the tracked planning decisions, not every housing permission in England. It provides a separate example of how flood-risk advice enters development decisions, without showing that those 301 homes will become uninsurable.

Planning and insurance questions

Blanc told the BBC that building alongside flood zones also calls for a different approach. Measures taken at a property can make it more or less vulnerable to flooding, she said. Her comments therefore addressed both the location of new homes and how they are designed or adapted where flood exposure exists.

In Aviva’s earlier analysis, Jason Storah, its chief UK and Ireland general insurance executive, said the company supported plans to build more homes but wanted them located appropriately and built with resilience in mind. He called for stronger planning rules and for flood-resilience measures to be required under building regulations for new homes in at-risk areas. Those are Aviva’s proposed policy changes, not rules announced in the BBC interview.

Aviva also said homes built after 2009 are excluded from Flood Re, the reinsurance scheme established in 2016 to improve access to affordable flood insurance for properties at high risk. That exclusion is relevant to the debate over newly built homes, although it does not by itself determine whether an owner can obtain cover from an insurer.

The BBC said it had approached the government for comment, but its report carried no response. It remains unclear from the reported interview whether ministers will change planning or building rules in response to Aviva’s warning. The available figures establish substantial flood exposure and Aviva’s concern; they do not establish that a specific number of new homes will become uninsurable.