Thousands of new homes constructed across England face a stark future of becoming uninsurable as climate change worsens, according to Aviva chief executive Amanda Blanc, who warned planners and housebuilders that continued development in designated flood-risk zones defies basic logic. She told the BBC that the flooding threat was absolutely increasing,
pointing out that You’ve seen a very dry summer, and what happens if you then get heavy rain on very dry surfaces is you get more surface water flooding.
Property development in high-risk zones continues at a pace that alarms the nation’s biggest insurer. Aviva research reveals that 110,000 homes have risen in flood areas over the past 10 years. If builders maintain this trajectory, another 115,000 properties will join them in the next decade.
How Aviva Tracked Flood Exposure in New Housing
The insurer’s conclusions rest on a constituency-level data project carried out between December 2025 and January 2026. Analysts combined Ordnance Survey AddressBase records for newly constructed properties with Environment Agency flood datasets first published in January 2025.
- One in nine homes constructed between 2022 and 2024 face a medium or high risk of flooding, representing 43,937 out of 396,602 recorded properties.
- Aviva’s research also highlights that nearly a third of new homes built in 2024 will face some degree of flood risk by 2050, while a wider evaluation identifies 101,657 properties experiencing some level of flood exposure from that identical three-year period.
- Looking toward mid-century, roughly 15% of those 2022–2024 builds (or one in seven) will face medium or high flood risk by 2050 as extreme weather intensifies.
These figures measure physical exposure rather than guaranteed insurance denials. Blanc noted that construction bordering those flood zones also needs a different approach, stating, You can do all sorts of different things to your property to make it more or less vulnerable to flood.
Government Planning Rules and Property Resilience
The Environment Agency reports that approximately 6.3 million homes and businesses in England currently sit in areas vulnerable to flooding. As the climate crisis intensifies, the agency has noted that this total could climb to roughly 8m, translating to one in four properties by the middle of the century. Reflecting the shifting climate, the Met Office calculated earlier this year that under current global warming trajectories, exceptionally wet winters comparable to the UK’s 2023–24 season have transitioned from once-in-80-year occurrences into once-in-20-year events.
Government officials maintain that protections are tightening. A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: We've put a record amount of investment into protecting nearly 900,000 properties against billions of pounds of flooding damage.
The spokesperson added: Meanwhile our planning proposals will help ensure that housebuilding will not go ahead in areas that are at risk of flooding, helping us to build 1.5 million homes without compromising on safety.