We're currently trying to get our home insurance renewed so shopping around. Problem is, we live in an old mining area and as with most houses in the area, there is a history of subsidence on our property. It showed up on searches when the previous owners (a relative of ours) bought the house in 2006 but not on our searches when we bought from them in 2013. I believe the actual subsidence was in the 1980's, there was some fixing/compensation from the coal board, and no problems since. So even though we've been possibly too honest for our own good in declaring stuff to our mortgage company and previous insurers re subsidence we only know about because we know the previous owners, we haven't generally had problems getting insurance as there are several companies who are only bothered if the subsidence was more recent - 10-15 years.
But this year we're trying to also find an insurer that doesn't mind my working from home (seeing clients, which a lot of insurers won't insure because of), so we rang a specialist broker whose panel all happily insure people working from home. At least one of their insurers, though, is balking at the subsidence and asking for a Certificate of Structural Adequacy or something. My DH is worried they're going to refuse to quote, and says if they refuse to quote (as opposed to quoting an astronomical figure or restricted terms or something) we will have to declare this when trying to find insurance in future, when asked, "Have you ever been declined insurance?" I can't believe that that's what that question means - surely it's no different to when GoCompare or whoever don't list a particular company as offering a quote in your circumstances? DH's stance seems to be backed up by the chap from the broker, mine a bit by googling. Can anyone clarify?
Bit of an essay, sorry! 