Drivers Claimed £10.2 Million for Pothole Damage but County Councils Paid 6%, Quotezone Shows

• County councils in England received 9,351 pothole damage claims worth £10,273,040 in 2024/25 and paid £666,712, which is 6.49 percent of the money claimed.
• Hampshire paid 1.41 percent of the £5.39 million claimed from it, while Oxfordshire paid 20.52 percent of £763,715.
• Pothole reports fell 16 percent to 233,047 across the same 13 councils, yet 73 percent of drivers surveyed say potholes near them are getting worse.

Drivers who hit a pothole and ask their council to pay for the damage are far more likely to be turned down than paid. Freedom of Information responses gathered by car insurance comparison site Quotezone show that 13 English county councils received 9,351 vehicle damage claims worth £10,273,040 between April 2024 and March 2025. Across the same 12 months those councils paid out £666,712. That is 6.49 percent of the money claimed, or about 6p for every £1 that drivers asked for.

Quotezone published the findings on 27 April 2026, using FOI data collected in the fourth quarter of 2025. It asked all 21 English county councils for the figures, and 13 replied in time with the full information requested. The average claim works out at £1,099 (our calculation: £10,273,040 divided by 9,351 claims). The councils themselves explain that the claimed figure is often the reserve set aside when a claim arrives, based on an invoice, a quote or the claim handler’s best estimate, and that it is kept whether the claim is later settled, rejected or still open.

The councils also say the figures cover vehicle damage only, are counted from the date the claim was notified, and can include several reports of the same pothole. So the 6.49 percent is a ratio of money claimed to money paid, not a count of how many individual drivers received a cheque. It is still the clearest national sample available of what happens when a driver sends a pothole damage claim to a local authority.

Why the County You Drive In Decides Whether You Get Paid

The gap between the best and worst council is wide. Drivers claiming from Oxfordshire County Council fared best, with £156,744 paid against £763,715 claimed, a payout rate of 20.52 percent. Oxfordshire also handled the most claims of any council in the sample, at 1,773, and logged 34,447 pothole reports in 2024/25, the highest total in the data.

The five councils with the highest payout rates, by share of money claimed, were:

• Oxfordshire: 20.52 percent, £156,744 paid from 1,773 claims worth £763,715.
• Warwickshire: 19.35 percent, £95,918 paid from 408 claims worth £495,591.
• Nottinghamshire: 16.05 percent, £23,146 paid from 633 claims worth £144,250.
• West Sussex: 15.62 percent, £97,654 paid from 792 claims worth £625,197.
• Cambridgeshire: 14.29 percent, £114,294 paid from 1,000 claims worth £799,957.

At the other end, Hampshire County Council paid £75,856 against £5,393,788 claimed, a rate of 1.41 percent. Leicestershire paid 1.5 percent (£2,919 of £194,385), Worcestershire 2.45 percent (£856 of £34,966), Gloucestershire 2.62 percent (£4,784 of £182,846) and Kent 2.76 percent (£24,935 of £903,690). The middle of the table held Surrey at 10.14 percent (£39,255 of £387,189), Suffolk at 8.99 percent (£8,480 of £94,370) and East Sussex at 8.64 percent (£21,871 of £253,097).

One council distorts the national figure. Hampshire’s £5,393,788 makes up 52.5 percent of all the money claimed in the data, from 1,464 claims. Take it out and the other 12 councils paid £590,856 against £4,879,252 claimed, a rate of 12.1 percent (our calculation). That is roughly double the headline 6.49 percent, but it still means close to 88p of every £1 claimed went unpaid.

The pothole reports themselves moved the other way. Across the 13 councils, reports fell from 276,932 in 2023/24 to 233,047 in 2024/25, a drop of 15.8 percent (our calculation). Not every council saw a fall. Nottinghamshire rose from 17,720 reports to 24,359, West Sussex from 29,660 to 32,530 and Oxfordshire from 34,021 to 34,447. Fewer reports do not mean fewer claims for damage: the 9,351 claims equal about 4 for every 100 potholes reported (our calculation).

What Drivers Say About Potholes and Paying

Quotezone paired the FOI data with two surveys of 1,000 UK drivers, run in October and December 2025. In the survey, 73 percent said potholes in their area had got worse over the previous 12 months, 95 percent said they should be able to claim compensation from their local council for damage, and 92 percent said the council compensation process needs to be made easier. Each survey has a margin of error of about 5 percent at a 95 percent confidence level, according to Quotezone.

The government announced a record £1.6 billion for pothole filling and road repairs in England for 2025 to 2026 in December 2024, and asked the public to report potholes. Quotezone cites that investment alongside its survey results. Greg Wilson, Quotezone’s chief executive, said: “Councils are under immense pressure but that doesn’t change the reality for drivers with costly damage.”

The scale of the gap is easiest to see per claim. Spread across all 9,351 claims, the £666,712 paid works out at about £71 each, against an average of £1,099 claimed (our calculation). Real payouts are not spread evenly, and the sample cannot say how many claims were paid in full, so the £71 is an illustration of scale, not what a typical successful driver receives.

Can You Avoid It? How to Give a Pothole Claim the Best Chance

A driver whose car is damaged by a pothole has two routes: claim from the local council or road authority, or claim on their own car insurance. Each has a cost. Quotezone’s advice sets out what each one needs.

A council claim needs strong, detailed evidence. Quotezone lists the following as the minimum to gather at the roadside and afterwards:

• The exact location of the pothole, plus the date and time of the incident.
• Photographs of both the pothole and the damage to the vehicle, preferably time stamped.
• Receipts for repairs already paid for, or several written quotations if the work has not been done.
• Any broken parts from the car, kept in case the council wants to inspect them.
• Details of a witness, where there was one.

Check the pothole’s size before you rely on a claim. Quotezone says some councils will only look at compensation once a pothole reaches a set width or depth, so a photograph with a coin or tape measure for scale gives the council something concrete to assess. The council’s own claims page will state its threshold.

Check who owns the road too. The data covers county councils only. A pothole on a motorway or major A road in England is normally the responsibility of National Highways, not the county council, so the claim goes to a different body.

The insurance route is quicker but carries a price. Greg Wilson says claiming through a car insurance policy will likely put the driver’s no claims bonus at risk, which can make future premiums more expensive. A repair bill close to the policy excess, or one that leaves the driver with a lower bonus for several years, can cost more over time than the pothole damage itself, so it is worth comparing the repair quote with the likely loss of discount before choosing.

Whichever route you take, tell your insurer about the incident quickly. Quotezone advises contacting the insurance provider even when you do not plan to claim, as failing to notify the insurer can cause problems if you need to claim later, for example when the repair turns out to be more serious than the first quote suggested.

Finally, report the pothole to the council whether or not you claim. Reports are how councils log defects, and the government has asked drivers to report them. A dated report from you or a neighbour also helps prove that a defect existed on a particular day.

The practical lesson in the figures is that the evidence and the postcode both count. A driver in Oxfordshire or Warwickshire saw roughly one pound in five or six paid out in 2024/25, while a driver claiming from Hampshire, Leicestershire or Worcestershire saw less than three pence in the pound. A well documented claim is the one part of the process that drivers control.

Quotezone has said that its sample covers 13 of 21 county councils, so the totals do not describe every authority in England, and unitary and city councils are not included. The 2024/25 financial year is the most recent full year in the data.

Sources:

• Quotezone, Less than 10% of compensation paid for potholes (27 April 2026)