A question about listed building insurance

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

We're in the process of buying a grade 2 listed house, currently waiting for survey.

If we go ahead I understand I'm going to need an insurance policy which covers rebuilding costs to a figure that takes into account the likely extra rebuilding costs involved in it being a listed building - more expensive materials, skilled labour, etc.

My question is, did your building survey when you bought include this figure, or did you have to have a separate survey to get it? Our mortgage provider is arranging the survey but they've agreed to send a surveyor with the RICS historic building conservation certification.

Also, is your insurance massively expensive? I'm expecting it to be a lot more than we pay in our current house - is that unavoidable?

We struggled to get insurance for our Grade II listed because it was unoccupied and we are having a lot of work done.
NFU et al wouldn't cover us so we went to a broker. It costs masses & will do until we live in it. There are lots of exclusions on the policy too.
Sorry.

Ours went up so much that we dropped it the moment there was no mortgage to pay. Horrible situation to be in.

Our next house will be a modern one, I've had enough of charming exposed beams and inglenook fireplaces etc etc.

Try Hiscox. They are not the only people to cover listed buildings, but they do reliabil

Doh - sorry

Try Hiscox. They are not the only people to cover listed buildings, but they do reliabily do so. And there service and no-quibble coverage is very good.

We pay £1000+ for our insurance. Didn't need an extra survey for the rebuild costs.

We're in the process of buying a grade 2 listed house. We've got building insurance through AXA. We've had to take out the insurance before the solicitors will proceed to completion.

We just had one survey done (the full one though, cost approx £1000) which was arranged through our mortgage provider.

To answer your final q, I don't know how costs compare. The house we're buying is 3 times the size of the one we're selling so we're not comparing like with like.

There is a fabulous club called the Listed Property Owners Club (lpoc) who can advise on so many things to do with listed buildings.

They can also source competitive insurance for listed buildings - they recently knocked £600 a year off our insurance :)

Thank you so much, everyone.

It won't be standing empty and there should not be major work at this stage though there are bound to be things in the future.

Hiscox and NFU have been recommended to me. We'll add Axa to the shortlist.

Happyasasandboy - the LPOC - have you found it useful in other ways? I'm already in SPAB and I looked at the LPOC. Have you ever used their helpline?

Saving you £600 on insurance is excellent but presumably I could just go to Lark Group without being a member?

Listed Property Owner's Club helped us a lot, but I think Lark are expensive - we were paying over £1,100 a year until we got quotes from NFU and Hiscox for between £700 - £800 (for a rebuild value of a £1.25 million, which I don't understand the sense of because if the house was ever decimated to the point where it needed rebuilding, why on earth would we rebuild a £1.25 million replica of a listed building that is only listed because it is of historical and local significance in a way a modern copy would totally not be? But that's an entirely different bug bear of mine.)

Our neighbours are insured with Kwikfit who do home as well as car insurance - maybe worth getting a quote from them.

Yes, we have used their helpline to get advice on all sorts of issues, from structural stuff about how things should be (our house has been a bit butchered by previous owners) to info about lime plaster/lime mortar and how to insulate walls that need to breathe.

Out insurance was £1200+ with NFU and £600+ with Lark, for £600k rebuilt and contents.

I am sure it's possible to approach Lark directly :)

Oops there was a name change mix up there, but I reckon you can tie the responses together without me spelling them out!

Thank you!

It will be very interesting to see what rebuild cost the surveyor comes up with. Probably nearer 600k than Comtesse's 1.25 mill. Also, our contents aren't worth much. Luckily dh is good at shopping around.

Just had a look. Ours is with AXA. The rebuild cost is much less than the property value. Buildings only.

We don't have a listed building but we do have an odd old house with buckets of outbuildings which are pretty run down. We found Home Protect very good for doing out of the standard insurance - they say they do canal boats to castles!

there quote was not that much more than our victorian terraced house so not a total nightmare

www.homeprotect.co.uk/property-types/listed-buildings?searchkeywords=home%2bprotect

Great, thanks!

oh lord sorry that should be their not there