Marius Comper

One home in four

Law 260/2008 requires a 50 or 130 lei annual policy against earthquake, flood and landslide. On 31 July 2026, 24.9% of the dwellings in the INS housing stock had one.

Four houses, one lit Four house silhouettes. Only the first has a lit window: one in four dwellings holds the mandatory policy.

Four dwellings. One with a policy, in PAID’s table of 31 July 2026.

PAID table of 3,181 local authorities, INS housing stock. Sources

Look up a commune

Coverage changes from one lane to the next. Chiajna, next to Bucharest, stands at 79.6%. Dodești, in Vaslui, stands at 1.4%. The statute is the same.

    Fifty lei, one hundred and thirty lei

    The policy is called PAD, the mandatory natural-disaster cover for a dwelling. It is issued by the Natural Disaster Insurance Pool, a company the statute created to hold this risk. The premium is fixed: 130 lei a year for a type A home, of concrete, fired brick or treated materials, with a sum insured of 100,000 lei. 50 lei a year for type B, adobe and untreated materials, with 50,000 lei.

    The duty sits in article 3 of Law 260/2008: natural and legal persons insure every building used as a dwelling, registered with the tax authorities, that is still used as a dwelling. Finding the gap, and the fine of 100 to 500 lei, belong to the mayor. The first fines reported in public appeared in 2025, seventeen years after the law.

    PAD covers three perils: earthquake, flood as a natural phenomenon, landslide. It does not cover a fire from a socket, a neighbour’s burst pipe, hail, theft. The 100,000 lei is a cap, not the value of the house.

    Municipalities hold the average up. Communes pull it down.

    In the 103 municipalities, 35.1% of dwellings have a policy. In the 2,861 communes, 15.3%. Towns sit at 24.6%, next to the national figure. Communes hold 4,644,588 dwellings, almost half the housing stock, and there the policy is scarce.

    Municipalities
    35.1%1,543,935 policies / 4,401,854 dwellings
    Communes
    15.3%711,631 policies / 4,644,588 dwellings

    1,404 of 3,181 local authorities sit under 10%. They contain 2,097,830 dwellings. 315 sit under 5%.

    Where the policy is bought

    The top of the list is a belt of new suburbs: Chiajna 79.6%, Popești-Leordeni 72.5%, Moșnița Nouă 72.0%, Corbeanca 70.5%, Giroc 70.5%. The bottom is a run of communes in Moldova, Dobruja and Oltenia. Dodești 1.4%. Lungani 1.4%. Dobromir 1.5%.

    Counties follow the same line. Ilfov 48.3%, Bucharest 44.1%, Timiș 36.3%. Olt 11.2%, Vaslui 11.4%, Botoșani 11.6%. Vrancea, the county whose name Romania’s earthquakes carry, sits at 19.5%, under the national average.

    The table does not say who bought a policy for a loan. Banks require PAD for a mortgage; UniCredit states this in its questions on mortgage and Prima Casă loans. The mayor is the one who should fine the gap. The geography that comes out of the table fits the places where people take credit, not the places where the river comes over the bank.

    Counties by the share of dwellings with PAD, 31 July 2026. Ilfov 48.3%, Olt 11.2%.

    Pechea bought the policy after the water

    In September 2024 the flood took Galați county. The prefecture counted 4,000 dwellings hit, 900 of them destroyed between 80 and 100%. Cosmin Tudor, of PAID, told HotNews that 20.73% of households in the county were insured, and he named the communes. Pechea: 248 policies out of 3,495 dwellings, 7.1%. Drăgușeni: 2.3%. Corod: 4.8%.

    The table of 31 July 2026 shows what followed. In Pechea, policies rose from 248 to 962. In Corod, from 139 to 828. The law had sat on the table for sixteen years. The water sold the policy in twenty-two months.

    Commune Aug 2024 Jul 2026 Policies
    Drăgușeni 2.3% 16.4% 47 → 359
    Corod 4.8% 30.0% 139 → 828
    Suhurlui 5.0% 9.0% 33 → 58
    Pechea 7.1% 25.6% 248 → 962
    Slobozia Conachi 14.1% 32.3% 206 → 511
    Costache Negri 16.5% 32.7% 174 → 376

    The 2024 figures are the ones PAID released in the days of the flood, quoted by HotNews on 16 September 2024. The 2026 figures are from PAID’s UAT table for 31 July. The INS denominator moved as well; the direction is given by the policy count.

    For the houses that held a policy, PAID estimated on 2 October 2024 claims on the order of €5 million. For the families hit, with or without a policy, the government paid emergency aid: 10,000 lei under Government Decision 1145/2024, plus 15,000 lei under Government Decision 1171/2024. AJPIS Galați reported 143.3 million lei. In Pechea, 1,177 people received the first 10,000 lei.

    Emergency aid is a household payment, not the rebuilding of the house. The policy, where it existed, could pay up to 100,000 lei for the building. The two sums do not replace each other. Anyone without a policy was left with the aid.

    What this table does not say

    The rate is the number of PAD policies divided by the INS housing stock, as PAID publishes it. A holiday house, an empty house and a lived-in flat enter the denominator the same way. A policy on a building that is missing from INS would inflate the percentage; the table does not let that be checked row by row.

    The public-housing column is marked by PAID as fragile: in 46 localities it exceeds 100%, because the INS count of public dwellings has not been updated. I do not use it as a national rate.

    The geography of mortgage credit is a fit, not a measurement from this file. Banks require the policy; the table does not tag the policies bought for a loan.

    The Galați 2024–2026 comparison sets a statement from the flood against a table two years later. They are two PAID photographs, not a panel of the same houses.

    Sources

    1. PAID Romania, UAT coverage table, as of 31 July 2026. 3,181 rows, INS housing stock. File used here: data.json.
    2. Law 260/2008 on compulsory home insurance against earthquake, landslide and flood, republished, as amended. Premium, sum insured, duty, fine, the mayor’s role.
    3. Law 115/2023, which restates the premium and sum insured in lei: 130 / 100,000 for type A, 50 / 50,000 for type B.
    4. HotNews, 16 September 2024, PAID figures for the flooded communes, given by Cosmin Tudor. HotNews, 2 October 2024, the €5 million estimate.
    5. Galați Prefecture, 22 January 2025: Government Decisions 1145/2024 and 1171/2024, 4,000 dwellings hit, 900 destroyed between 80 and 100%, the 10,000 and 15,000 lei payments.
    6. AJPIS Galați, reported by Viața Liberă: 143,300,000 lei, 5,789 people on the first tranche, 1,177 in Pechea.
    7. UniCredit, insurance help pages: PAD is required for mortgage and Prima Casă loans.