Will a home survey tell you the flood-insurance excess?

What is the fuller explanation?

Insurers use their own data as well as public maps. Two insurers can answer differently. The surveyor does not bind cover when they mention a river. If they recommend you “check insurance”, that is a prompt, not a declinature and not a price.

A lender may have its own insurance requirements. That is the lender’s rule, not RICS’s condition ratings. Your broker or solicitor is the person who hears it. The survey fee does not include a year of cover, and a retention is not an excess. Keep those words apart when you negotiate.

What should you ask your surveyor?

• Are you advising me to check insurance, or are you stating that cover is refused?
• Did you see physical damage, or only a map?
• Is any insurance figure inside your report? It should not be, unless you are quoting a document I gave you.

What are the typical next steps?

1. Get insurance terms in writing before exchange if flood is a concern.
2. Do not add an imagined excess to a price reduction.
3. Tell the insurer about the house honestly. The survey is not a proposal form.

Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.

Also asked about this

Which pages should you read next?

• What should you ask about air bricks if a flood map has already worried you?
• If the flood check says nothing about groundwater, does that mean there is none?
• Does a home survey prove the drainage field meets the general binding rules?
• Guide: What does flood risk mean when you are buying a house?
• All UK home survey questions

Sources

• GOV.UK: Check the long term flood risk for an area in England
• RICS: RICS Home Surveys (Home Survey Standard)
• RICS: House surveys: the costs, types and benefits of an RICS home survey