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?

If you’ve shopped around and can’t find cheaper than that, that suggests to me that there have been a lot of claims in your area. Something that affects lots of building in a small area is likely subsidence or flooding. So no, I absolutely would not be without some form of buildings insurance if I were you.

Got to be a rage bait post.

I would be prepared to go without contents insurance if desperate, but never without buildings insurance. It's false economy. When we lived in a semi, the house next door had a chimney fire and we were within a whisker of burning down. If we hadn't had buildings insurance we'd have been snookered. In fact, we had already claimed on our buildings insurance a couple of years previously, when we had a flood in a storm, and also when our conservatory glass roof cracked.

I would probably check your flood risk on the gov.uk website, if it says higher, that might be why

I'm assuming you live in an absolutely enormous house if your premium is so huge. Or maybe a thatched cottage or right next to a river? If your premium is that huge and you're mortgage free it implies you're well off so I'm wondering why you're entertaining the idea of not paying.

I just renewed my joint buildings and contents insurance for £280, for a 4 bed detached. As others have said I'd never stop paying the insurance premium, I couldn't sleep at night for worry if I wasn't insured.

I've known people who have had fires from kitchen appliances and had to have extensive restoration work done, 2 people who had burst pipes leading to massive damage requiring a whole new kitchen in one case, collapsed ceilings in both cases. I also know someone whose home flooded and they had to live in temporary accommodation for 18 months, all paid for by insurance. None of these people could have afforded the multiple tens of thousands the repairs cost.

People think it'll never happen to them, but then it does.

If you have a mortgage, it will likely be a condition of your mortgage to have buildings insurance. Can you put it on a 0% credit card? If anything happens you’re totally stuffed.
Edit just seen you have no mortgage. I can’t understand why it’s so high. Go see a broker or similar.

Don't do it. I lost half my house to a fire (arson) last year and LUCKILY I had left my policy to auto renew....5 days before! We would have lost everything (more so than we did!) As contents paid out and building is currently being repaired. All worth the premiums IMHO. Do NOT risk it, as anything can happen at any time.

Definitely don’t renew with the same company. You need to shop around first. If you’ve just renewed for many years then you will definitely be able to reduce your bill by looking elsewhere. That cost is excessive

you can reduce your bill by not taking out contents insurance, only buildings insurance.

shop around
building insurance is the one you can't afford not to have

also, check the mortgage conditions - most mandate a building insurance

There must be some reason the premium is so high…? But, if I couldn’t afford it then I’d sell and move to somewhere with more a more reasonable premium. Unless of course I could easily lay my hands on enough cash to clear the site and rebuild the house. But then you are looking at many hundreds of thousands for even the smallest property. And if that’s the case a premium of a few thousand wouldn’t be an issue. As an interim measure until you sell can you reduce look the premium with a much higher excess?.

How can it possibly be that expensive? I just renewed ours and it was about £300 including contents and named items and extras such as legal cover for an £800k house.

But to answer your question - no, I wouldn’t go without it. It If I was really struggling I’d go with a high excess to get the premium down.

Years ago my f decided house insurance was a waste of money. He had six children, no other savings, and owned the house outright.

My dm threatened to leave him if he did it. It was a piece of prize idiocy and she knew it, thankfully.

In the end she went back to work and paid it herself, and if home was less clean he'd just have to live with it. I don't think she ever trusted his judgement again.

I know it's crazy. No I don't.

I’m quite shocked it’s so expensive for you. I pay £17 a month for good cover for my 3 bed. It was worth every penny when I had a massive flood and approx £20k of repairs cost me £350 in excess. There is no way I’d be without it.

Ok.Have you shopped around. When I started in insurance in the 80s we were desperate to hold on to existing customers...It was free, new customers were expensive to get.
Now insurers don't seem to care. As I've said before shop around

Are you completely mad? What would you do if it burned down? And/or damaged other properties /injured others? Cld you foot all the costs of rebuilding, moving etc?? Surely you can get a better quote than one with a £1300 increase on what you pay currently? Unless you’re paying something stupid like £30 per month & only with correct cover is your premium £1300 more. Can’t believe you’d gamble the value of yr home for £1300! Nuts.

Christ, no.

I went on holiday 8 years ago and when I came back my boiler had exploded and flooded the whole house. Everything we owned was gone. Rebuild cost was well over 100k (ceilings, floors and walls had to be taken out and dried out, we were in a hotel for a month over Christmas then in rented accommodation for 7 months)

Next door blew up in a ball of fire six months later after a gas leak, and it cost much more to rebuild.

A friend of mine had this idea of cutting costs regarding insurance. She wasn't skint. 40k a year salary, out every weekend drinking cocktails but 'couldn't afford' insurance anymore apparently. She lit a candle one night and went in the bath. House burned down, and she suffered scarring from trying to escape.

It's not worth it. I'd honestly rather go without food

N.B. I was told my insurance would go through the roof after my claim. I'm back to paying £13 per month after it initially went up to £25 per month and still with the same company. Worth every penny. Sainsbury's (Direct Line) in case that's useful. Shop around if necessary.

What other quotes have you had as there is usually a variation

Going without is utter madness! Don't even think about it!!

Shop around a bit and see if you can get a better deal.

Our house flooded - what we would have done without the insurance I just do not know.

You say that nothing has happened yet, but that is the point of insurance - to deal with the unexpected rather than regular occurrences.

I work in home insurance, please take my advice and don’t cut the home insurance. If you have to, shop around to get a cheaper quote. I personally deal with claims: big fire damage claims, big storm damage claims and the cost of those claims significantly outweigh the cost of any premium and policy excess. If you were to have a larger claim and you have to move out of your home for 6 to 12 months, the cost of the accommodation alone could run into the tens of thousands.

Am I reading that right, £1,300 for just the buildings cover? So not including contents? Do you have more than 5 bedrooms and a very high rebuild value? I've only see premiums that high for buildings only if either they had a large claim before or it's a high net worth individual with a very expensive house and lots of add ons.

We live in a flood zone (thankfully we’ve never been flooded, but lots of houses a few streets away were flooded on New Year’s Day).

Our AXA renewal quote in March had tripled (£300 -> £900) so we shopped around and got several quotes for around £400. When we ran a quote on AXA’s website it said that they can’t cover our home as it’s too risky for them. As other posters have said, a sky high insurance quote is the insurers’ way of telling you that they don’t want to cover you anymore!

Have you tried to obtain alternative quotes? What is the declared value of your home? How much are the contents insured for?

No, low income.

Shop around. I pay circa £25 a month for a 3 bed semi detached. Not having insurance would be a huge mistake but like those people who go on holiday and don’t take out insurance and then come begging with a go fund me page when it goes wrong