Homeowners. Have any of you not renewed buildings insurance cover?

[girlfriend44]

Thinking of giving it a miss this year. No choice really.

Have paid building insurance for years. Nothings ever happened.

I simply can't afford it.
Insurance is such a rip off.
Not going to be too outing but it's gone up one thousand three hundred pounds in a year. No claims in the last five years. In fact never claimed.
Simply cannot afford this, along with everything else.

An increase like that is pure greed.😡
One thousand, three hundred.in a year.
Anyone else not have it?

I know a family who are living in only half of their house while the rest is like a building site. They made the decision you made then there was a house fire and they were uninsured.
I've also had a family member flooded out when the pumping station failed and another who lost EVERYTHING to a fire, the only recognizable thing left was the boiler.
I would never go without insurance.

@girlfriend44 It’s hard for pple not to assume if you don’t share what you say is the full story. That you’re v concerned about this & stressed suggests maybe your payments for insurance have lapsed due to hardship & you’re having some kind of trouble with your property & need to make a claim?
You may be better speaking to a debt charity or CAB to work out a solution? Nobody I’m sure has intended to offend you on here.

If you have a mortgage buildings insurance is mandatory.

I think the point is you are taking that risk by not insuring. Insuring costs you more in the long term because the statistics mean the long term cost to the insurer paying out for a claim is less than the cumulative cost of the premium over the same time period, that is how insurance companies make money, but the point is it is a safety net if the worst happens. If you choose not to insure, you are either gambling that a catastrophic event will not happen to your house (very likely) but if it does, you are screwed, or you have the money to afford the repairs or rebuild plus alternative accommodation. I have buildings and contents insurance but I don't include my expensive bicycles with the contents, because it pushes up the premium and I can afford to replace those bicycles if they get destroyed or stolen off the premises.

Are you talking buildings insurance or contents Insurance? If buildings insurance, as others have said, it’s normally a condition of the mortgage if you have one. (And something renters ignore when they moan about the cost of renting, together with a budget for any repairs, etc).

If you are talking about contents, then that’s different, I’ve not had contents insurance for decades, if anything is damaged or stolen, I’d just replace it. You never get full value from insurance anyway.

Shop around and pay monthly spread the cost some insurers offer the option of monthly payment. I will never go without house insurance.

Shop around. If you have a mortgage it is usually a requirement to have building insurance. Premiums have gone up a lot in recent years. We find we have to shop around every year to find a better price because the one we are on goes up so much. It’s an obscene situation.

OP, is it high because you have a thatched roof? If so your house is more more likely to go up in flames.
Are you living on your own? Do you have a free room and can take a lodger to help pay your bills.

I wouldn’t imagine her house has suddenly gained a thatched roof 😂

I really wouldn’t. Last July I had sewage come up my downstairs toilet due to the people I had bought the house from in Oct ‘22 moving the bathroom and downstairs loo and not doing the plumbing properly. This cost over £20000 to correct as the toilet is beside the kitchen so the whole kitchen floor, island, walls, utility cupboard had to come out due to contaminated water, floor had to be replaced, plus of course the joy of actually cleaning it up! There was also the inconvenience of being without a kitchen for over a month. I did actually go away for a week. Not something you could ever imagining happening but that’s what insurance is for. I could never have covered those costs as a pensioner.

It's the one insurance I would always have, as I could never afford re-building costs in the event of a fire etc. I've never known anyone else who doesn't have buildings insurance either. A friend lost her home to fire due to the carelessness of a neighbour and she would have been completely screwed without insurance, which paid for her to live elsewhere while the property was rebuilt.

You've said you're aware of shopping around - are all the quotes you have received roughly the same? Have you checked out MSE and ABI for advice on how to get the cheapest home insurance?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/how-to-get-cheap-home-insurance/

https://www.abi.org.uk/products-and-issues/choosing-the-right-insurance/home-insurance/cutting-the-cost-of-home-insurance/

my only opinion on the matter.

My friends lived in a caravan on his parents front lawn, their insurance ran out and they were going to wait til the new month ticked over to renew it.

It was a £20k caravan, uninsured for only 2 weeks. It caught fire and was completely burned out.. now they have £20k debt in loans taken out to buy it, and a pile of burnt wood and metal, and no insurance pay out.

Insure your damn home.

I’ve gone without contents insurance before when things have been tight but buildings insurance is a condition of my mortgage so I would never skip that

If your mortgage isn't paid off I think you have to have it or bank could treat it as a breach on contract.

Well if you can't afford it you can't afford it but could you afford it if the worst happened?
Not even a total gutting fire, maybe an average claim of say £5k?
You may find the premium goes down this year as the insurance industry is in a soft market this year, prices are coming down but it's likely to only be for a year.
I would first look to Insure for the bare minimum, remove any additional extras that might be on there, like accidental damage or legal expenses cover, but don't reduce your sum insured to make it cheaper, that will lead to under insurance which will affect a claim.
In answer to your question, no I haven't considered not having buildings insurance because I couldn't fund a major claim myself.

Never go without it, we are in the middle of a big building claim, it's costing thousands, including having temporary accommodation paid for and I don't know we would have done without it. You never think it will happen to you. Shop around, talk to the company to see if they can be more reasonable and increase the excess but never go without it.

My mum recently received a renewal quote from her existing insurer for over £1000 for a 2 bed bungalow. I went on 2 comparison sites and got it for just over £300. You need to shop around and change every year if you need to.

@Hollietreewho is your insurer? We shopped around and went through a broker and couldn’t find anything below £3K!

I imagine there's a massive drip feed here that ops house is a listed building or on a flood plain or gas a thatched roof or something else. Unless the above applies..... As we've all said if you shop around you should be able to get buildings insurance for about £400 a year.

How much is your house worth? Could you do without that if it burned down?

Shop around or see a broker.

Definately would NEVER go without insurance. It's my home, my biggest financial asset and I would be absolutely in no situation to have another home if it got destroyed with no insurance.

I'd be feeling very twitched if I didn't have any insurance. I do shop around every year when its renewal time. I then go back to the original company and haggle their renewal quote down to the cheaper quote I got elsewhere.

Insurance companies will massively increase renewals, hoping they will get away with it! This is why the increase has happened OP

Most years Home Protect is the cheapest for us. Last year it was the RAC!

That's so high! Ours is also roughly £300 (4 bed terraced house) in an area considered one in eighty for flood risk.

We no longer have a mortgage but we would not stop buildings and contents insurance. The neighbours either side of us have had fires and one of them is attached to us.

OP, yes for the last 3 years we couldn’t afford to insure our house. We had to make hard choices as I am disabled and heating it during the winter plus eating took priority otherwise I would have become very ill. Last December we shopped around and found a policy we could just about afford having sold items on Vinted to pay for essential living costs. I agree a house is a big asset however it’s sometimes there is a choice of no choices.
I’m so sorry you’re facing this OP and wish you well.