What do I do if my house floods?
Short answer
Call 999 if anyone is in immediate danger, move family, pets, vehicles and important items upstairs or to higher ground, and turn off gas, electricity and water if it is safe — never touching an electrical switch while standing in water. Ring Floodline on 0345 988 1188 in England, Scotland and Wales, or the Flooding Incident Line on 0300 2000 100 in Northern Ireland. Then call your insurer.
Verified · 9 cited sources
Safety comes before property, and the first rule is the one people break. GOV.UK is blunt about it: do not walk or drive through flood water. It may contain sewage, and it hides rubbish, wreckage, uneven roads and pavements and broken drain and manhole covers. Move your family, vehicles, pets and important items to safety — upstairs or to higher ground — and turn off the gas, electricity and water supplies if it is safe to do so, but never touch an electrical switch while you are standing in water. If you or anyone else is in immediate danger, that is a 999 call.
Which flood service you ring depends on where you live, and the four nations run different ones. In England the Environment Agency, in Scotland the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and in Wales Natural Resources Wales all issue flood alerts and flood warnings, and all three share the 24-hour Floodline on 0345 988 1188, with a textphone on 0345 602 6340. SEPA draws the distinction plainly: an alert means flooding is possible across a wider area, a warning means flooding is expected and you should act now. GOV.UK does not route Northern Ireland through Floodline; nidirect publishes a Flooding Incident Line on 0300 2000 100 instead.
Phone the insurer before you strip anything out. GOV.UK says to contact your insurance company to start the claim and to take photos of the damage and the flood water line — that line is what an assessor works from. Natural Resources Wales says a loss adjuster's visit can take up to seven days from the area becoming accessible, and that your insurer might provide temporary accommodation; where you have no cover, it points you to the council. Our view is that registering for warnings while the weather is calm does more for a household than anything else here, and that a dated written log of what was ruined strengthens a claim — neither point is one the agencies make.
Once you can get back in, treat everything the water touched as contaminated. GOV.UK says not to eat food that has touched flood water, and to stop using tap water if you notice a change in its colour, taste or smell — contact your water company if that happens. Items polluted by chemicals or sewage go through the council's environmental health department, not the normal bin. nidirect says to have a qualified electrician check any appliance that has been in floodwater before it is used again, and a Gas Safe registered engineer inspect the gas supply after a flood.
There is public money, but it is not automatic and it differs by nation. In England, Defra's Flood Recovery Framework says ministers decide when support is switched on and set the eligibility criteria; where it is activated, councils pass on a community recovery grant indicatively around £500 per eligible household and can give a 100 per cent council tax discount for a minimum of three months, or while you cannot return home. In Northern Ireland the emergency financial assistance scheme, asked for through your council, can pay a householder £1,000. Wales runs Emergency Assistance Payments and Scotland a Scottish Welfare Fund crisis grant — both through the local council.
Two things to sort out afterwards. First, insurance: Flood Re is a scheme every insurer offering UK home cover must pay into, letting an insurer pass the flood risk element of your policy to it for a fixed price based on your council tax band, with a standard £250 excess. You never deal with Flood Re yourself. Our reading is that this is why a flooded home should still be insurable, though Flood Re describes the mechanism without promising cover for any property. Second, rogue traders follow floods. Natural Resources Wales advises checking identification, getting several quotes and finding registered tradespeople on TrustMark.
- 999 first if anyone is in immediate danger; never walk or drive through flood water
- Turn off gas, electricity and water if it is safe — never a switch while standing in water
- Floodline 0345 988 1188 for England, Scotland and Wales; 0300 2000 100 in Northern Ireland
- Photograph the damage and the water line, then ring the insurer before clearing up
- Electrician and Gas Safe engineer before anything is switched back on
- Grants exist in all four nations, but ministers or your council decide whether you get one
People also ask
Sources & provenance
Facts verified
- 1.What to do before or during a flood OfficialGOV.UKUsed for: Calling 999 if you or someone else is in immediate danger, moving family, vehicles, pets and important items upstairs or to higher ground, turning off gas, electricity and water where safe, not touching an electrical switch while standing in water, and the warning that flood water may contain sewage and hide rubbish, wreckage, uneven roads and broken drain and manhole covers
- 2.What to do after a flood OfficialGOV.UKUsed for: Contacting the insurance company to start the claim, taking photos of the damage and the flood water line, using the council's environmental health department for items polluted by chemicals or sewage, not eating food that has touched flood water, and stopping tap water use if its colour, taste or smell changes
- 3.Sign up for flood warnings OfficialGOV.UKUsed for: The 24-hour Floodline number 0345 988 1188 and textphone 0345 602 6340 covering England, Scotland and Wales, the split between the Environment Agency, SEPA and Natural Resources Wales, and that Northern Ireland is directed to nidirect rather than Floodline
- 4.Flooding FAQs OfficialScottish Environment Protection AgencyUsed for: That SEPA operates Floodline in Scotland on the same number, 24 hours a day, and the difference between a flood alert covering a wider area as an early heads-up and a flood warning meaning flooding is expected and action is needed now
- 5.What to do after a flood OfficialNatural Resources WalesUsed for: That a loss adjuster's visit can take up to seven days from the area becoming accessible, that the insurer might provide temporary accommodation and the council can help where you have no cover, the Welsh Government Emergency Assistance Payment, and the rogue-trader advice to check identification, get several quotes and use TrustMark
- 6.Clearing up after a flood OfficialnidirectUsed for: The Northern Ireland Flooding Incident Line on 0300 2000 100, that a householder could receive £1,000 under the emergency payments scheme asked for through the local council, and the requirement for a qualified electrician to check flooded appliances and a Gas Safe registered engineer to inspect the gas supply
- 7.Flood Recovery Framework: guidance for local authorities in England OfficialDepartment for Environment, Food & Rural AffairsUsed for: The indicative community recovery grant in the region of £500 per eligible household, the 100 per cent council tax discount for a minimum of three months or while a household cannot return home, and that it is for ministers to determine when the support is made available and what the eligibility criteria are
- 8.Scottish Welfare Fund Officialmygov.scotUsed for: That a Crisis Grant helps with an unexpected emergency such as a fire or flood, and that applications go through the local council rather than the Scottish Government
- 9.How Flood Re works IndustryFlood ReUsed for: That every insurer offering home insurance in the UK must pay into the scheme, that an insurer can choose to pass the flood risk element of a policy to Flood Re for a fixed price based on the home's council tax band with a standard £250 excess, and that the insurer pays the claim and is reimbursed from the fund afterwards
Not a source — AI-assisted analysis on this page
- AI-assisted analysis — the order of operations and what it protects — The sequence we set out — safety, then the flood service, then the insurer, then the clear-up — and the judgements that registering for warnings is the highest-value thing to do between floods, that a flooded home should still be insurable because of Flood Re, and that keeping a dated written log of what was ruined strengthens a claim, are our reasoning across the cited pages. No single source sets out that order, ranks preparation steps, or says a written log affects the outcome of a claim.
The safety steps, insurance sequence and clean-up precautions are taken from GOV.UK's during-a-flood and after-a-flood pages, nidirect and Natural Resources Wales; the Floodline number, textphone and the split between the Environment Agency, SEPA, Natural Resources Wales and Northern Ireland from GOV.UK and SEPA; the England grants from Defra's Flood Recovery Framework guidance, the Scottish crisis grant from mygov.scot, and the insurance backdrop from Flood Re. The ordering of the steps, the claim that registering for warnings is the most valuable thing to do between floods, and the point that a flooded home should still be insurable are our reasoning rather than any source's wording, and are disclosed in the sources list. Grant amounts, eligibility and whether the England framework is activated at all change with each event, so confirm the current position with your council and your insurer.
Facts on this page are taken from the sources listed above — UK government departments, devolved administrations, regulators, statutory bodies and official statistical releases. Comparisons, judgements and "which option suits whom" conclusions are AI-assisted analysis written over those sources; they are marked in the text and listed as an AI-analysis entry in the sources, not attributed to any authority. Rates, thresholds, fees and processing times change, usually at the start of a tax year in April; figures are current as at the review date shown and should be confirmed with the responsible body before you rely on them. Much of what follows differs between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — where it does, this site says so.