Author: Faryal Bhatti, Marketing Manager, Norton Insurance Brokers
Key takeaways
- Most standard UK buildings insurance policies cover subsidence damage to the main structure of your home — but with a separate subsidence excess, typically £1,000, and only for new, sudden damage.
- The average subsidence settlement reached £17,820 in Q1 2026, up 9% year-on-year and a record, according to the ABI — following the driest summer on record in 2025.
- Fences, patios, garden walls, and driveways are usually excluded unless the main house is damaged at the same time. Settlement in new builds and pre-existing movement are not covered at all.
Quick Answer:
| Yes, most standard UK buildings insurance policies cover subsidence damage to the main structure of your home, subject to policy terms. Two conditions apply almost universally: a higher excess, typically £1,000, and the requirement that the damage is new and sudden rather than pre-existing or gradual. Damage to fences, patios, garden walls, and driveways is usually excluded unless the main house is damaged at the same time. |
The average subsidence claim settled at £17,820 in the first quarter of 2026 — up 9% on the year before and the highest figure the ABI has recorded. The driest summer on record in 2025 is the reason: prolonged dry weather shrinks clay soils, foundations move, and claims follow twelve to eighteen months later. The 2022 heatwave produced 18,000 subsidence claims in the second half of that year alone. The pattern is established, the costs are rising, and the question of what your policy actually covers has rarely mattered more.
Does home insurance cover subsidence?
Yes, in most cases. Subsidence, the downward movement of the ground beneath your home, pulling the foundations with it is a standard insured peril on the majority of UK buildings insurance policies, subject to the specific terms of your policy. The ABI’s guidance on subsidence confirms that a buildings policy will usually cover damage to the structure of your property and outbuildings, including investigation costs, repairs, and alternative accommodation if the property becomes uninhabitable during works.
It is buildings insurance that responds, not contents, though contents cover can pay for belongings damaged as a direct result of the movement. The UK is unusual in this respect: as BIBA notes, it is one of the only countries in the world where private homes are routinely insured against subsidence, heave, and landslip as standard.
What is the subsidence excess?
Higher than you expect. Almost every UK buildings policy applies a separate, higher excess to subsidence claims, typically £1,000, regardless of the standard policy excess. Which? examined 76 buildings insurance policies and found only one that potentially applies a lower subsidence excess, at £950. The other 75 sit at £1,000 or above. For a property with a known subsidence history, excesses of £2,500 to £5,000 are not unusual.
Set against an average settlement of £17,820, the £1,000 excess is proportionally modest. But it is the first £1,000 of every subsidence claim, including investigation-only claims where monitoring concludes no repair is needed.
What counts as subsidence, and what does not?
Three types of ground movement are usually grouped together in policy wording: subsidence (the ground sinking), heave (the ground rising, usually waterlogged clay expanding), and landslip (ground moving down a slope). All three are typically covered together.
Settlement is the one that is not covered, and it is the one most commonly confused with subsidence. Settlement is a building compacting under its own weight, most visible in new builds and extensions during their first few years. The hairline cracks it produces are cosmetic, expected, and excluded from every standard policy. The distinction matters at claim time: a surveyor who attributes cracking to settlement rather than subsidence has just moved the repair cost from the insurer’s account to yours.
The warning signs of genuine subsidence are specific: cracks wider than 3mm, appearing suddenly, wider at the top than the bottom, and typically running diagonally from the corners of doors and windows. Doors and windows that stick because the frame has warped. Wallpaper rippling at wall and ceiling joins with no damp present. If those signs are appearing, the correct move is to notify your insurer before commissioning any work, most policies require notification as soon as you become aware of a problem.
