Empty Property Insurance

[ShortLass]

Anyone got any recommendations?

Thought I would go through a broker, as this worked well for landlord's insurance. But when quote came through, they are charging me a £150 fee! Their website says they are normally paid through commission, but it turns out, not with this particular service.

Their quote for one year's insurance is £600 (£450+£150). Rather steep. Last year, my house insurance was less than £200.

I'm going to ring round companies direct tomorrow, but does anyone have any recommendations?

Worth trying the NFU. They covered my late relative's Grade II listed house when it was empty and on the market for 18 months. It really annoys me how most companies won't cover empty properties. My house, which I let out, is going to be empty for less than 3 weeks between tenants, which takes me to within 15 days of renewal; and my landlord insurer says they will not renew my insurance if the new tenants don't move in and the house becomes empty upon the renewal date!

The NFU don't tend to be cheap though but are usually good.

Try towergate insurance. They call it unoccupied property insurance if you search for it though.

They were very reasonable for me when I had to insure a house that was empty while up for sale.

We used Homeprotect. No complaints but no experience of making a claim with them so any comment there.

Was the property also empty last year when the insurance cost £200?

We are going through homeprotect too

I did it through AA for my parents' house before it was sold- we had existing insurance with them. They do ask that you visit the house at least twice a week though. Think it was Tower Gate insurers- about £250?

If it is actively being marketed for tenancy then IIRC Letsure will do it (I used them under these circumstances in the past).

Just remembered...there was a levy (25%?) on the Letsure premium for the "empty" period.

It was tenanted when I had £200 insurance.

My old broker would do empty property insurance if I were to let it out again, but I'm going to be moving in after building work, so they won't.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will try them.

I had probs with empty house ins when I lived abroad. I used Adrian Flux.

I use bluefin. Not cheap but good policies. In this scenario you don't want the cheapest insurance, you want the policy that works if you get vandalism, leaks of any kind or God forbid, squatters.

I used GSI , cost about £250 I think for 3- bed semi in the South East

NFU are £££ for empty property insurance. my premiums more than doubled.

Try Intelligent Insurance - they have various specialist policies:

www.intelligentinsurance.co.uk/property-usage/unoccupied-home-insurance/

Empty property insurance can be tricky - our usual insurer referred us on to somewhere else when we needed it, it was a lot more expensive and we had to have someone go round regularly to check on the property.

Ours was not being marketed to let, it had been let and we left it empty to sell it.

UPDATE: I went back to the original broker in the end, Coversure.

I didn't realise how much more this type of insurance was. Towergate was way more expensive. People are right that you need to make sure you are adaquately insured.

Sales people at Adrian Flux seemed clueless and, despite getting a quote a little cheaper off them, I didn't have any confidence in them.