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?

My house is just a modest London terrace but I do have a recent £25k subsidence claim - yet my insurance (buildings and contents) is only £700/year. You must have a massive / unusual / risky house if you can't find a better quote than £1300.

Think the OP has left some crucial out of her description but she is not willing to divulge. Or indeed it’s a wind up..

Last year I came across a couple where the DH hadn't paid the home insurance because he had decided it was too expensive (in excess of £600 for buildings and contents). This was despite the fact that some years previously they had an uninsured neighbour whose house had burned down and they had lost everything. He hadn't bothered to go on any comparison websites. I went online and got them insurance for less than £200.

Insurance companies rely on the fact that many people just don't bother to do a comparison. They just blindly renew with the same company year on year.

Me too, and my DD.

We live in a relatively large 5 bed detached and pay about £700, £1300 seems excessive unless you live in a very high crime area or the house is massive and you have a lot of items to insure.

Thanks for reminding me I need to get it

For this to be the cost, your home must have major hazards. If you can say what the hazards are (flood, sinkhole, subsidence, cliff edge, construction materials etc) then you may be able to get some advice. An insurance broker would be able to help too.

Do you have the odd 150 000£ to rebuild of your house burnt down?

Where would you live in the meantime??

You've not answered re comparison sites??

We paid £350 for 3 bed detached. The top quote was over 1100😂

Probably a lot more houses will be affected by flooding maps, even though they are in a place that doesn't flood, a PP had high premiums for flooding even though they were on a hill. I would expect many more people to find out they have high premiums going forward because of this.

It does seem extremely high but we don't know where the OP lives or what type of house she owns.

We've been insured for buildings and contents with Churchill for years.

We have a late 70s, three bedroom semi in a large Dorset village. Rate band C, low crime area. House worth around £360K. This year's premium was £215.

I hope the OP will be shopping around for a better deal.

Years ago as a single parent barely getting by I was surely tempted to do this. When renewal came up in January my lovely Mum talked me out of it and helped with another bill. Five months later we had a candle fire which caused £20,000 worth of damage!! Please pay your home and contents insurance.

Mine isn't even that for the year, never mind an increase by that. I pay just over £30 per month for joint building and contents insurance. My building insurance covers up to a maximum of £10,000,000 if a rebuild was required.
You need to shop around as that seems ridiculous.

This is where the owner or their broker asks an underwriter to review their premium. Send photos, coordinates etc. Of course you might then find they own the access road and some services that could get flood damage at high cost etc, but mistakes would be cleared up.

I’ve had several leaks from the bathroom causing significant ceiling damage to the floor below. When they went to repair it they found asbestos, it was horrendous and I thank the stars for insurance.

I haven’t read all the way through to see if anyone else has said this, but I’m a mortgage broker and buildings insurance is a legal obligation as part of your mortgage contract, so if you do have a mortgage then your are legally obliged to keep adequate insurance in place. If you don’t have a mortgage then it’s up to you whether or not to risk it. I don’t know what your circumstances are to have such an unbelievably high premium, I’ve been quoting buildings insurance for 25 years and the premium you’ve quoted is around 3-4 x higher than 99% of the policies I arrange. This suggests a higher risk, ergo a risk you are more likely to encounter, and therefore all the more important to keep in place. It’s worth bearing in mind that there are many things covered by this type of insurance that you don’t even think of. For example, my mum’s oil tank leaked into the ground, and she had to be rehoused for 6 months as part of the works, total claim was over £90,000. For me personally there are no circumstances in which I wouldn’t have this insurance in place.

Shop around and also contact your current insurer.

I had my cat's insurance go up but I was able to renegotiate a deal with a higher excess.

You NEED insurance. Nothing may have happened so far but things can, a tile blowing off a roof and hitting someone, a fire, a flood anything.

Also do you ever have any contractors in your house? A plumber? Builder? Painter and decorator? If they are injured on your property you can be found liable.

I even have an insurance policy on my mobility scooter, the excess for me causing damage is £1 million in case I run someone over.

So, off the back of reading this, I checked my policy and found it had lapsed a year ago, it hadn't auto renewed and I don't know why. I'm looking into it.

I Insured my bricks and mortar very quickly last night for £200 quid including legal expenses insurance, and a 20 quid Amazon voucher for doing it through my workplace benefits platform. 2 bed detached bungalow in Hampshire.

Thanks for the thread, you've probably saved me from loosing my home through my own stupidity.

Wow! I can't get over the prices people are paying.

I have unlimited buildings insurance and £100K contents, for which I paid £376.
Oh and that includes legal protection as well.
Policy excess is only £250.

This is from September. I'm worried how much it will cost me next time now!

About 4% more.
People with high risk factors are charged a lot more, that won't apply to others.

By accident we went without house insurance for 3 days (only time in my entire life due to being distracted by family circumstances), on that 3rd day we had a fire that ended up costing us somewhere in the region of £70000 (rebuilding costs and contents)!! We still consider ourselves relatively lucky; 5 minutes more and the whole house would have gone up and noone was injured; if I could go back in time I would have renewed my house insurance on time and now have it in my diary as a reminder a few weeks before it's due. The cost of the insurance is lower than the mortgage loan we're paying back!

OP,

Kindly, if this isn't a wind-up then you have to understand that to have a buildings insurance policy increase by £1300 is utterly absurd, and it begs the question of how much it was to start off with. If it is true- and I'm willing to believe you are telling the truth- you've got to accept this is far from normal and would absolutely require a call to the insurance company to ask WTF they are playing at.

Car insurance going up by, say, £300 for no reason I could accept, as this has happened to me. Home insurance (which I'd expect to be under £500 a year for most homes) going up by £1300 is bonkers.

However, no matter how much it costs, I could not sleep at night without it. No way. My home is my only asset and the only place I have to live.

No way though my DP is more lax about this stuff so I organise it. He wouldn't choose not to have it though but would forgot to renew. Your price seems crazy high - we have claimed (storm damage) and have an old property that had really high rebuild value and were less than half that

No, would never take that risk.

Autumn 2023 my home and contents was £475 on a 4 bedroom detached. Autumn 2024 I was quoted around £1700 and I was shocked. No claims, no changes, no disasters in my local area and no explanation for such an increase. Tried the comparison sites and was able to get it down to just over £500. I'd never be without insurance and I would always shop around.