How to Claim for Pothole Damage: Council or Insurer?

Council or insurer: the short answer

You can claim for pothole damage from whoever maintains the road, or on your own insurance. You can't be paid twice for the same repair. The road authority doesn't have to pay just because the hole was there. It only pays if it failed to look after the road properly, and it gets to argue that point.

So budget months, not weeks. National Highways aims to decide on liability about three months after it acknowledges your claim. Northern Ireland's roads department says vehicle claims take four months on average.

This page is part of our guide to accidents and claims. It covers damage to your car, van or bike.

If you were hurt, that's an injury claim with its own rules. The official injury claims portal is for claims against another driver's insurer, so for a pothole injury, take advice from a solicitor. Our guide to the claims portal or a solicitor explains the difference.

Who is responsible for the road?

It depends on the road and on which part of the UK you're in. Gov.uk's page on claiming for damage to your vehicle lists the routes. Here's the short version.

England

Outside London, the county or unitary council maintains most roads. National Highways runs the motorways and the major A-roads in its network. Transport for London handles its red routes, and gov.uk gives its number as 0343 222 1234.

Wales

The Welsh Ministers are the highway authority for every trunk road and motorway in Wales. Traffic Wales handles the claims on their behalf. The Welsh Government investigates them. For any other road, report it to the local council and ask that council about compensation.

Scotland

Trunk roads are split into four units, and each has an operating company under contract to Transport Scotland. When I checked its trunk road network page, BEAR Scotland had the north west and south east, and Amey had the south west and north east. A few stretches, mostly motorways, are run by separate DBFO (design, build, finance and operate) companies instead. Transport Scotland says a claim goes first to whichever company looks after that section.

Every other road in Scotland is the local council's.

Northern Ireland

One body, the Department for Infrastructure, maintains every public road. You claim online through nidirect, whatever the road. Don't write to a council, because councils don't maintain roads there.

Roads no public body maintains

Supermarket car parks, private estates and unadopted roads aren't covered by any of this. The law on highway claims applies only to roads maintained at public expense. For a private car park, the landowner or operator is the one to approach, and the rules are different.

Claim from the authority or your insurer?

Think of it as two prices for the same repair.

Claiming on your policy spares you the authority's months-long wait, but you pay the excess, and it may cost you at renewal. Third-party only cover won't help at all. Gov.uk says it "does not cover any other costs like repair to your own vehicle", so you'll normally need comprehensive cover.

The sting is how the claim gets recorded. In one Financial Ombudsman Service decision from October 2024, a driver's car was damaged by a pothole. She said she'd reported it to the council, which had acknowledged and repaired it.

In that case, Aviva accepted the claim, took legal advice on recovering the money from the council, and was told there was no real prospect of success. So it recorded the claim as a fault claim.

The ombudsman didn't uphold her complaint. It said it's "normal insurance practice for a claim to be recorded as fault on insurance databases where an insurer cannot recover their claim costs from anyone". What that does to your no-claims discount, the discount you earn for each year without a claim, depends on your insurer. Ask yours before you decide.

Claiming from the road authority costs no excess and leaves no claim on your policy. But you do the evidence work, you wait months, and you may still be refused. Our guide to non-fault accident claims walks through the insurer side in more detail.

You can't be paid twice for one repair. If your insurer pays, the policy usually lets it pursue the authority itself, in your name, to get back what it paid.

What a claim against the authority turns on

The authority is never liable just because the pothole existed. You have to show the road wasn't properly maintained and that this caused the damage. Even then, the authority escapes if it took reasonable care of the road.

England and Wales

Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 puts the highway authority under a duty to maintain a road maintained at public expense. That's a duty to maintain, not a promise to fix every defect the moment it appears.

Then comes section 58. It's a defence for the authority to prove it had "taken such care as in all the circumstances was reasonably required" to keep that stretch safe for traffic.

The court looks at the kind of road and its traffic, and the standard of maintenance you'd expect for it. It looks at the state a reasonable person would expect to find it in. And it asks whether the authority knew, or could reasonably have been expected to know, that the condition was likely to cause danger.

Two things follow from that.

The authority has to prove the defence, not you. A council with no inspection record, or one that sat on a report past its own response time, struggles to show reasonable care.

And "could reasonably have been expected to know" matters. Never assume a council is safe just because nobody reported the hole.

Section 58 also keeps contributory negligence in play. If you were driving too fast for the conditions, any award can be cut.

You'll see "40mm" quoted online as the depth at which a pothole "counts". There's no such figure in the Act. Councils set their own inspection and repair levels, and they differ.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland has a near-identical rule. Article 8 of the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 puts the Department under a duty to maintain all roads, with the same reasonable-care defence. It adds a second defence for damage caused by someone else's roadworks before the road was put back.

Scottish law is different. The duty to manage and maintain public roads is in the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984. A claim for a road defect is generally brought in negligence.

It turns on two questions. Did a careful driver face a significant risk? And should the authority, using reasonable care, have dealt with it?

Transport Scotland says its operating companies must "take reasonable care" to keep the network safe, and that drivers must take reasonable care too. Take advice before relying on this.

Evidence to gather before you repair the car

Each body publishes its own list, and they differ. Northern Ireland's is the most detailed, so it's a fair guide to what any authority will want.

• Photos of the damage to the car, clear and dated.
• Photos of the pothole: a close-up, plus a wider shot showing a landmark. Only if it's safe to take them.
• The exact location. A road name plus a house number, junction or marker post.
• The date, the time and the weather.
• A repair estimate or receipt. Northern Ireland asks for receipts, or else two estimates under £350 and three over it.
• The damaged parts, kept, or photos of them if the repair is already done.

West Sussex County Council, as one English example, also asks for the V5C (the logbook), plus a current MOT certificate and your insurance certificate. Those are on that council's form, not in the law. Expect to be asked, and don't read it as a legal condition.

Never go back onto a motorway or a fast A-road to take pictures. Gov.uk says trespassing on a motorway is a criminal offence, and tells you not to visit or photograph the spot. Transport Scotland says the same. Use a dashcam if you have one, describe the location precisely, and let the authority check its own inspection records.

One more thing. Debris from another vehicle isn't covered by this route. Gov.uk says that goes to your insurer.

Report the pothole first

Report it before you claim, and keep the reference.

In England and Wales, gov.uk's report a pothole page finds the right council from the road's postcode. Motorway and major A-road potholes in England go to National Highways on 0300 123 5000. In Scotland you pick your council through mygov.scot. In Northern Ireland you mark it on a map through nidirect, and the claim form asks for the reference number you get back.

It matters because of the knowledge test above. A dated report is proof the authority knew. Some councils go further: West Sussex says you "must" report the defect before claiming, and won't process a claim without it. That's a council rule, not a legal one, but there's no reason to test it.

How long it takes, and what if it's refused

Longer than you'd like.

• National Highways aims to acknowledge a claim within 21 days and decide on liability 90 days after that. It calls these "Red Claims".
• West Sussex says its claims take 16 to 20 weeks to assess.
• Northern Ireland's Department for Infrastructure quotes four months on average for vehicle damage.

None of them publishes a deadline for sending the claim in. The only clocks are the legal ones.

In England and Wales, section 2 of the Limitation Act 1980 gives six years from when the cause of action accrued. Northern Ireland's 1989 Order gives six years too. In Scotland the obligation is generally extinguished after five years from the date of the damage, under the 1973 Act.

Don't wait, though. Evidence fades, and so do inspection records.

A refusal isn't always the end. National Highways says there's "no automatic right to compensation", and it will also tell you if a contractor or utility company was responsible instead. Northern Ireland says the same, and passes your details on. So read the refusal: it may name who to claim from next.

If you still disagree, the route is court. In England and Wales the small claims track is the normal track for claims up to £10,000. Scotland's simple procedure covers claims under £5,000. Northern Ireland's small claims process goes to £5,000 but excludes road traffic accident claims, among others, so check with the court first whether yours qualifies.

Court costs money and time. National Highways also warns that if you pay a solicitor, you might not get those fees back even if it accepts liability. I'd only go to court with a solid repair invoice and a dated report the authority ignored.

Check the car afterwards

A pothole hit is a safety job before it's a paperwork job.

Get the tyres, wheels, tracking and suspension looked at, even if the car feels fine. TyreSafe, the tyre safety charity, says potholes can cause unseen damage to tyres and wheels, and that cuts or bulges in a tyre could cause a blowout. Our guide to common MOT failures covers what suspension wear sounds like, and tyres now fail more MOTs than brakes.

If you're buying rather than claiming, wear can leave a trail. A tester can list problems to watch or fix in the future as MOT advisories. A free car check shows the full MOT history, so you can see them before you view the car.

Common questions