My house is flooded

Guaranteed Standards of Service payment

If your property is internally flooded due to a failure of our drainage system, you’ll be eligible for a payment of an amount equivalent to your annual wastewater charge, from a minimum of £300 to a maximum of £2,000 for each incident and these increase if you have more than one incident in a 12 month period. These payments are not compensation or an admission of liability.

What will happen following your claim:

1. We’ll write to you within 20 working days of the incident. The letter will include the following information:

• • More about the payment.
  • What steps we have to take as a direct result of the incident.
  • Any investigations we need to carry out.

2. We’ll send you a cheque or credit your account within 20 working days of the flooding incident. 

3. If we’re late with the payment, as a domestic customer you’ll get an additional payment of £40, which we’ll automatically credit to your account.

In all cases, payments will not apply if:

• you notified us more than three months after your property was flooded
• we have already made a payment to the same customer in respect of the same incident
• the flooding was caused by: an abnormal or unforeseeable event, including a natural event, outside the control of the company, the consequences of which could not have been avoided by the exercise of all due care by the company; industrial action by the company’s employees; the actions of the customer; a defect, inadequacy or blockage in the customer’s drains or sewers for internal sewer flooding
• the customer was not materially affected by the incident

In deciding whether a customer has been materially affected by the incident companies must take into account what parts of the customer's land or property the effluent entered, the duration of the flooding, whether the flooding restricted access to the land or property, whether the flooding restricted the use of the land or property and any other relevant considerations of which the company is aware.

Conditions may apply.

We know how distressing it can be to experience flooding, so here’s how we can help to get it sorted as soon as possible.

Call our 24-hour emergency number

If your property is flooded, please call us straightaway on our 24-hour emergency number: 0330 303 0368.

What could have caused this?

There are times when a house is flooded because of a burst pipe or water main, or it could be a leak from another source. 

Insurance claims

We have strict liability for freshwater flooding. That means we’ll pay the cost of replacing damaged property or lost items.

You'll need to make claims for damage or loss to your own insurers as they will settle claims on a new for old basis. They’ll tell you what you need to do to meet the terms and conditions of your policy and recover anything they’ve paid out from us.

We'll also pay any insurance excess you’ve had to pay.

If you’re not insured, then we’ll deal directly with you. We’ll settle claims based on an item’s current age and value, including wear and tear, rather than on a ‘new for old’ basis.

Guaranteed standards of service payment

If your property is flooded externally due to a failure of our drainage system, you may claim an amount equivalent to half your annual sewerage charges – from a minimum of £150 to a maximum of £1000 and these increase if you have more than one incident in a 12 month period.

To claim, you’ll need to apply within three months of the incident. The first step is to fill in our External Flooding claim form or get in touch with us.

These payments are not compensation or an admission of liability.

In all cases, payments will not apply if:

• you notified us more than three months after your property was flooded
• we have already made a payment to the same customer in respect of the same incident
• the flooding was caused by: an abnormal or unforeseeable event, including a natural event, outside the control of the company, the consequences of which could not have been avoided by the exercise of all due care by the company; industrial action by the company’s employees; the actions of the customer; a defect, inadequacy or blockage in the customer’s drains or sewers for internal sewer flooding. Our checks confirm that the flooding was caused by a third-party issue, such as surface water running off land, a flooded river, or a problem with a private or highway drain.
• the customer was not materially affected by the incident

In deciding whether a customer has been materially affected by the incident companies must take into account what parts of the customer's land or property the effluent entered, the duration of the flooding, whether the flooding restricted access to the land or property, whether the flooding restricted the use of the land or property and any other relevant considerations of which the company is aware.

Conditions may apply.