Radically improving the way people rent

We know first-hand the pain of finding a rental deposit for your new home. This is amplified when you've already paid a deposit on your current home. That cash is locked away and you can't use it for the home you're about to move into.

This is a pain-point across the whole market, not a signal of poor financial health or low affordability - just a reality of today’s cost of living. But it’s actually a much longer-term trend. In 2016, The Equality Trust found that the average non property-owning household had only £200 in financial wealth and over 70% had less than £2,500 in savings*.

Our latest launch is a step towards changing that for good.

Introducing Flex from Zero Deposit

It’s simple, we’re changing 2 things:

A flexible, monthly alternative to a cash deposits
This reduces the upfront cost of renting from 35 days rent to just 2. For an average property, that means tenants only pay £37 on Day 1, instead of a £1,200 cash deposit. But it’s more than just an affordable alternative; we already offer that.

Lifetime benefits of working with Zero Deposit and its partners
Our products will ensure that tenants will be rewarded for renting, not punished. Over 70% of tenants will be able to avail of a reduced rate for future tenancies and we'll help tenants to build their credit score during the lifetime of their tenancy.

Imagine, never needing to think about finding a cash deposit again.

And it Works for All

We work with many of the UK’s largest letting agents - over 2,700 branches are live and offering Zero Deposit to their tenants. It’s essential that both letting agents and the landlords have a certainty that they remain protected through the tenancy.

It’s one of the reasons why we’re fully regulated and that we’re backed by Connells Group, LSL, Foxtons, Andrews, Acorn and KFH.

Paul Deveney, Group Director & Head of Residential Lettings at The Acorn Group comments; ”We’ve keenly observed Zero Deposit’s traction within our branches and it’s clear that this product is being favoured more and more by tenants vs a cash deposit. We continue to believe that a fully regulated, insurance backed alternative is the best choice available to our landlords and that this new option clearly answers the Government Lifetime Deposit challenge.”

What’s next?

This is really just the start of our journey. Insurance has the potential to change lives and to do good. We’re changing the way people rent and improving a tired system that hasn’t evolved in decades. Putting more money back into the pockets of tenants while offering a better alternative to agents and landlords.  

And feeling pretty proud too. 

When will Flex be available?

We're planning to launch Flex with a limited number of partners in June 2022. Following an initial launch, we anticipate that the product will be rolled out across all of our partners later in the year.

* The Equality Trust, A House Divided, How Unaffordable Housing Drives UK Inequality, August 2016: View Report

** ZD data. Based on four tenants sharing a property and an average rent of £150 per week. On average 54% of tenants would pay £7.50 per month for the first 12 months. Does not include Setup Fee cost.