To think £806 to insure our house is alot, even if we have had minor subsidence?

[ScottishGlen]

We have a pretty bog standard 3 bedroom semi in a low crime area of a medium sized town. Our buildings and contents insurance with Tescos has come in at £806 - around £100 more than last year.
I believe it is this high because we have had two incidences of minor subsidence over the past 10 years (most recently in 2012) Cracks in the house have been monitored, then repaired, and ultimately two huge trees at the end of our garden were removed as they were believed to be causing the problem. Fingers crossed, no problems since then.
I tried to get quotes from other insurance companies last year but as soon as I mentioned subsidence they didn't want to know
Do we just have to accept this is how it is, or is it worth ringing round other companies this year? It is just so much money.........

No idea but try some of the sites online to get a range of prices like compare the market. I do that then phone the insurancer i like and get them to give a better price if they can. Need to be honest re previous claims x

Did your insurance pay for the previous investigations and treatment?

Is it your standard home-owners insurance that covers the value of the house?

I think I paid around £600 for ours.

What is the approximate value of your house?

Have you tried fiddling with Money Supermarket to find out if it's your previous claim that is causing the price to jump?

Beautiful - Yes, we've had this policy with Tesco for 10+ years and they did all the investigations, repairs etc.

Rabbit - I reckon our house is worth about £220k. I haven't done any fiddling on line yet. I was rather put off by my experience last year. The guy at Norwich Union actually put the phone down on me when I mentioned subsidence!

We have investigations starting next week

Do you know what has caused the subsidence?

I live in a mining area, so houses are prone to subsidence and our house has had work done on it to tepair 'possible subsidence'.

We have a letter from the Coal Authority (i think) that states any subsidence issues on our house will be covered in full by them. We sent a copy of this to our insurer when getting quotes - we pay about £400 for the year.

Sorry - just noticed you mentioned tree roots

Well, it's pretty easy to work out which particular factor it is that's driving it up - just deselect the button where you've made a previous claim.

We made a claim on our car insurance (our car was stolen!) and it trebled.

£806 for a 220K house seems very very high.

Is there a box for subsidence or does this fall under "structural"?

To be honest, it sounds about right for a house with such a recent history of subsidence depending on your property value.

I worked in insurance for years and the big S word is generally feared by brokers!

We pay about 650 a year for our prefab end of terrace (granted its not in a great area), but that's with no claims history.

It's always worth having a look online, particularly if Tescos keep putting yours up (it often goes up a little each year to represent inflation/cover insurance premium tax).

With your home's history though it's likely any new cover will need to be signed off by an underwriter rather than purchased online. It's something you want to make sure is fully detailed and covered should anything happen in the future.

Good luck, having a claims history can make everything so complicated even if all the info it there. You just need to find the right insurer who knows what they are talking about!

You are lucky you are even getting a quote. No insurer wanted to touch our house with a barge pole and we used brokers too (useless). Reason is there was historical subsidence which was fixed in the 80s with extensive underpinning.

The house is now more stable than rock but nobody wanted to know.

In the end, we found a specialist insurer who as Allstop says, knew what they were talking about. The premium wasn't even that hefty.

We pay about £200 with esure, house worth over £1m but to be honest I think it's based on rebuild value not market value anyway? No subsidence issues here though.
I usually just go to moneysupermarket rather than calling but not sure if that works where there is a history

Try Adrian Flux. We live in a high risk flood area and were getting ridiculous quotes in the thousands, even though the area has never flooded. AF covered at a fraction of the others quotes.

Once you have had any kind of substantial insurance claim the cheaper end insurance companies will have nothing to do with you.
In a similar situation though different reason for claim I have found NFU very good as all their policies are considered by the underwriter so you don't just get computer says no.

it is always worth ringing round, but you need to speak to some brokers in this case as you are now a specialist case. The online sites won't touch you now.

do NOT lie on the proposal form. That invalidates the insurance and YES, they will find out.

i didnt know subsidence caused such a problem. We pay less than you for our house worth over £2 million!

We pay Euro 1,200 because of subsidence in the area meabs it is black listed and to make it worse our house is built on a floating platform so we are no real risk of subsidence. We went to the ombudsman to even get a qoute. Oh and because the fire hydrant is so far from the house we are not covered for fire. I am having a firemans box for water etc but in nearer the house

If anything is going to push your premium up, it will be subsidence. That's not to say that you wont find that cover cheaper elsewhere though, there is always somebody willing to go that bit cheaper.

But yes, please be honest when you are applying. Lying is just not worth the risk of having invalid insurance.

Go to a broker. Can recommend Brownhill Morris and West - ask for Dora. She moved our insurance to a specialist company. Your premiums will forever be higher and with a high excess on subsidence work.

Thanks everyone. I'll do a bit of phoning round tomorrow and see if I can shave a few pounds off.

Ours is £150 with AA

BTW we pay nearly £2000 per year even though the subsidence was 20 years ago. Most competitive quote. Post subsidence insurance is v expensive as there is little competition out there.