PFR cost and payback estimator
Checked 23 Oct 2026
Work it out for your home
Worked example
For your own prices or installer quote, your policy excess and your own estimate of what a flood would cost to repair (nothing is filled in for you):
- Total outlay: your quote, or your item prices added up.
- Break-even: how many floods the protection would need to keep out before it has cost no more than the repairs it saved, and, if you add a guess of how often a flood might come, roughly how many years that is.
- A note on Flood Re's Build Back Better, which can pay towards protection as part of a flood claim, where your insurer offers it.
Source: Environment Agency, checked 23 Oct 2026; Association of British Insurers, checked 23 Oct 2026; Flood Re, checked 23 Oct 2026
Put in what protection would cost you and what a flood would cost you, and the estimator works out how many floods the protection would need to keep out to pay for itself.
How it works
- You bring the prices. We don't fill any in, because the cost depends on your doors, walls and floors. Use your installer's quote, or the prices of the products you're looking at. The only official cost ranges are old, so we show them for comparison only.
- Break-even counts whole floods. It divides what the protection costs by what each flood it keeps out would save you, then rounds up.
- Two ways to look at it. Against the whole repair bill, and against your excess alone, which is what you'd keep if the water stays out and you don't need to claim.
- Nothing leaves your device. What you type is saved in this browser so it's there next time. Use "Clear it" to remove it.
What it doesn't do
It isn't financial advice, and it can't tell you whether protection will keep water out of your home. That depends on how deep a flood gets and how long it lasts. A property flood resilience survey tells you which measures your home needs, so you only price those. It also doesn't count the cost of living somewhere else while repairs are done, or the things money can't replace.
Read the guide: How much does it cost to flood-proof a house? (sourced ranges)
More tools
Sources
- Whole-house resistance (door guards and air bricks, flood levels up to 900 mm), ABI 2009 prices (Environment Agency), checked 23 Oct 2026
- Whole-house resistance adding anti-flood valves and external wall treatments, ABI 2009 prices (Environment Agency), checked 23 Oct 2026
- Resilience measures inside a home, 2008 prices (Environment Agency), checked 23 Oct 2026
- An individually commissioned PFR survey, 2008 estimate (Environment Agency), checked 23 Oct 2026
- Flood depth the whole-house resistance estimate assumes (Environment Agency), checked 23 Oct 2026
- The average flood payout to a homeowner in 2025 (Association of British Insurers), checked 23 Oct 2026
- Build Back Better: the most an insurer can add for flood resilience (Flood Re), checked 23 Oct 2026
- Each insurer sets its own Build Back Better limit (Flood Re), checked 23 Oct 2026