New analysis by SurreySubsidence.co.uk has found that UK insurers are on course to pay out more in subsidence claims in 2025 than in any year since records began and that Surrey homeowners and buyers stand to absorb the largest per-property losses of any county in England.
Subsidence insurance payouts in the first half of 2025 totalled £153 million, according to the Association of British Insurers — already 35% higher than the combined H1 2024 figure of £113 million. Insurers supported around 9,000 households in the first six months of the year, with an average payout of £17,264 per claim.
Those figures cover only settled claims. The full picture for 2025 is considerably larger.
Subsidence damage follows a recognised lag cycle: a hot, dry spell causes clay soils to contract, foundation movement follows, and visible cracking typically emerges 6 to 12 months later before the monitoring and settlement process begins. The UK recorded its warmest spring on record in 2025, and actuarial analysis from Milliman published in November 2025 confirmed that soil moisture deficit data for the summer of 2025 matched the levels recorded in 2018 and 2022, both surge years with significantly elevated claims volumes. The surge triggered by spring and summer 2025 conditions has not yet fully flowed through the data.
Based on the H1 trajectory and historical H2 patterns from comparable surge years, SurreySubsidence.co.uk estimates that full-year 2025 subsidence payouts will reach between £275 million and £375 million, the highest annual total since systematic ABI records began.
Why 2025 is different from previous surge years
Subsidence events are not new. The British Geological Survey identifies clay shrink-swell as the UK’s most costly geohazard, currently costing the economy over £400 million a year — a figure projected to exceed £600 million annually by 2050. What has changed is the frequency and intensity of the conditions that trigger it.
The EuroTempest Subsidence Risk Assessment published in May 2025 reported that the February to June 2025 period was the driest on record for the South East since 2000, and the seventh driest since 1836. Three of the five most damaging subsidence years — 2018, 2022 and now 2025 — have occurred within the past decade.
Estimated full-year 2025 subsidence payouts
| Scenario | H2 2025 assumption | Estimated full-year total |
| Conservative | H2 matches H2 2024 exactly | ~£275 million |
| Base case | H2 grows 35% above H2 2024 (matching H1 trend) | ~£320 million |
| Elevated | H2 matches 2022 surge-year H2 (£219m) | ~£375 million |
| Previous record year (2022) | Full-year ABI data | ~£240 million (est.) |
Source: SurreySubsidence.co.uk analysis of ABI claims data. H2 2025 figures are projections, not confirmed payouts.
The Surrey premium paradox
The financial exposure from subsidence is directly proportional to property value. Surrey sits at an uncomfortable intersection of high prices and high geological risk. The county is the second most expensive in England and Wales by average sold price, at £589,478, while also sitting on some of the most subsidence-prone shrink-swell clay soils in the country. Insurers have identified 226 postcodes most susceptible to subsidence claims, all of which are in the clay-rich South East, with Surrey, Kent and Essex among the highest-concentration counties.
At the industry consensus devaluation of 20%, the average Surrey detached home valued at £937,510 (Zoopla) stands to lose £187,502 in realised property value from a confirmed subsidence event. That is more than three times the equivalent loss for an average UK homeowner (£54,000 at the UK average price of £270,000). Two in three transactions involving a property with active subsidence fail to complete, with average sale timelines of 12 to 18 months where they do proceed.
According to SurreySubsidence.co.uk, the high average property value in the county makes the subsidence exposure there uniquely costly. “A buyer who completes on a Surrey detached today without a specialist ground assessment is making the largest unhedged bet in their financial life on geology they probably haven’t looked at.”