Buying a house in a flood zone in Italy: mortgage, insurance and questions to ask

This guide starts from one fact: the house you are interested in is in a flood-prone area, or you suspect it is. How to check an address and what the P3, P2 and P1 areas mean is explained in How to tell if a house in Italy is in a flood zone. Here we look at what comes next: the bank, the insurance, tax, and the checks to settle before you sign.

1. The mortgage: valuation and property insurance

To grant a mortgage the bank has the house valued by a surveyor. According to the Bank of Italy's guide to home loans, the amount generally does not exceed 80% of the value set by the valuation; above that threshold banks ask for further guarantees and often apply less favourable terms (Il mutuo ipotecario in parole semplici, also available in English).

Among the costs of a mortgage the same guide lists the premium for insurance against damage to the property, the policy covering fire, explosion or lightning. The Bank of Italy points out that this insurance is not compulsory by law, but the bank may ask for it. If it does, you can look for a policy on the market: if it offers equivalent protection, the bank must accept it without changing the terms of the mortgage (L'economia per tutti).

A fire policy, however, does not cover floods. For a home, natural disaster cover is an extra guarantee that you ask for and pay for separately. If the house is in a P3 or P2 area, it is worth asking the bank before it approves the loan whether it also wants flood cover for that property, and whether it will accept the policy you choose.

2. How flood insurance works

In June 2024 IVASS, the Italian insurance supervisor, examined 46 natural disaster policies on sale in January 2024 from 14 insurers. Twelve were designed for households (Indagine sulle polizze a copertura dei rischi catastrofali). What it found explains well what to expect.

For households the cover is added to the home policy, on top of the basic "fire and other damage to property" guarantee, for an extra premium. Earthquake cover is usually the condition for being able to buy flood and flooding cover as well. Landslides are a separate case: among the policies examined, three insurers cover them within the flood guarantee and seven exclude them.

Not every house can be insured. The policies examined require the building not to be under construction, not to be unauthorised or unfit for use, and to be in good structural condition and repair. A basement turned into a living room without permits can therefore become a problem for the insurance as well as at the deed: planning compliance is one of the checks in What to check before buying a house in Italy.

In the contract it pays to look for a few specific things, because they are what counts when the water actually arrives:

• the excesses and co-insurance percentages, which IVASS often found in the policy schedule rather than in the general conditions;
• how cellars and semi-basements are treated, where the payout can be cut by as much as half;
• sewer backflow, excluded unless it is linked to the flood;
• flooding from storms, the so-called "bombe d'acqua", sometimes included and sometimes sold as a separate guarantee;
• exclusions for buildings in floodplain areas between a river and its embankments (aree golenali).

3. What the policy is worth: the average annual damage

To judge whether a premium is reasonable you need a measure of the risk in euros. The average annual damage adds up all the possible damage, each weighted by how likely it is: in almost every year nothing happens, now and then a great deal happens. It is the basis on which an insurer builds its premium, before adding costs and margins.

The report calculates it for a 100 square metre home at the address. In Piazza del Duomo in Milan, outside the flood areas, floods and earthquakes are worth on average between 20 and 25 euros a year, all of it from earthquakes. In Corso della Repubblica in Forlì, in an area with less frequent floods (P2), the figure rises to 380 to 790 euros, with earthquakes weighing more. In Via Castagnevizza in Rimini, in an area with frequent floods (P3), it reaches 640 to 2,020 euros, almost all of it from water. These are averages over many years, not forecasts, and they cover only the building: furniture and cars are left out. How we calculate them: What floods and earthquakes cost.

The flood hazard levels quoted come from ISPRA, Mosaicatura delle aree a pericolosità idraulica (v. 5.0 - 2020), IdroGEO, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, and the address figures derived from them are distributed under the same licence.

4. Tax: the 19% deduction

Since 1 January 2018, 19% of the premium for a policy against natural disasters can be deducted from Italian income tax (Irpef) for homes and their appurtenances (article 15, paragraph 1, letter f-bis of the Testo unico delle imposte sui redditi). The rules are in the Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate) guide Tutte le agevolazioni della dichiarazione 2026:

• there is no spending cap, even for several homes, but the deduction does not apply if only the appurtenance is insured;
• in a multi-risk policy only the part of the premium covering natural disasters counts;
• the share of the condominium policy relating to your flat can be deducted, with a statement from the building manager;
• the premium must be paid by bank transfer, card or another traceable method;
• the deduction is in full up to 120,000 euros of income and falls to zero at 240,000; from 2025, above 75,000 euros, policies taken out from 2025 are also subject to the overall cap on deductions linked to income and dependent children.

5. The duty to insure applies to businesses

The 2024 budget law (legge 213/2023, article 1, paragraphs 101 onwards) requires businesses entered in the companies register to insure land, buildings, plant, machinery and equipment against earthquakes, floods, landslides, inundations and overflows. Farming businesses are exempt. The deadlines were staggered by size, between March and December 2025, with later dates for some sectors (Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy).

For a household buying a home there is no such duty. There are two cases, though, where it comes close. If a business is run from the home, the Ministry makes clear that the part of the building used for the business must be insured (the Ministry's FAQ). And anyone who used the 110% Superbonus in municipalities hit by earthquakes, for works started after 30 December 2023, must take out a policy against natural disasters and catastrophic events within a year of the end of the works (decreto-legge 212/2023, article 2). If the house you are buying is in this situation, ask the seller whether the policy was taken out.

6. Before the final deed

The viewing and the questions about cellars, past flooding and flood defences come first, and you will find them on the flood zone page. Between the offer and the deed (rogito) a few paper checks remain.

Ask for an insurance quote before making the offer, giving the exact address and a description of any basement rooms: in a P3 area the premium can change the sums for the house. If the seller states that the house has never flooded, you can ask the notary how to record this in the preliminary contract.

Ask the building manager for a copy of the condominium policy, to see whether it covers floods and flooding and with what excesses, and for the minutes of recent meetings: works against water already approved, such as pumps or flood barriers, are costs that may fall to you as well.

Ask the Comune (the local council) whether the civil protection plan provides warnings or emergency routes for the area in case of flood, and whether the flood areas have been updated since 2020, the year of the latest national map. For an official check the binding document is the plan of the river basin district authority (PAI and the flood risk management plan).

The report gathers these questions into a list, grouped by who should answer, and picks them according to the building's data: for an address in a P3 or P2 area they include past flooding, the condominium policy and the protection of basement rooms. A full example is in the sample report.