Insurance during building work

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Building work on the extension started today. I rang my insurance company to notify them and found they won't cover us (I contacted them last week and chased up today as they hadn't got back to me).

So I need new building insurance that will. Any suggestions?

LittleOverwhelmed - it is not the case that an insurer would be entitled to avoid your claim if you had not notified them of work then suffered an u related loss during the period of the loss,

It used to be the case that breach of a policy warranty entitled the insurer to avoid the policy even if the cause if loss was unrelated to the

warranty breach. However this hasn’t been the case since a change in the law in 2016. Now the insurer would have to show that your breach of a policy term was contributory to the loss. There is is now plenty of case law on this and there are also plenty of rulings by the FOS in cases where insurers tried to push their luck.

Obviously it’s up to you and your personal risk appetite, but I would feel fairly relaxed about the whole thing if you’re using reputable tradesmen and you’re otherwise complying with your insurer’s Ts and Cs.

The insurance we needed was not related to the quality of the builder's work or them screwing up - it was related to security of the building - we had a massive hole in the back - where if a bunch of kids got in to have a drinks party and accidently or on purpose set fire to the building we would have insurance to put it right.

I've worked in insurance. There are several elements to consider if having significant building works:

1. your builder or project managing contractor needs to have Contractors All Risks cover. This covers the extension etc during the course of the build and any materials on site due to be used from normal perils such as flood, storm, fire etc.

2. they need to have adequate public liability cover should they be liable for damage to the existing structure or surrounding property or injury of a third party. A decent contractor should have no less than £5million indemnity limit.

3. if you find an insurer to cover you it will only be the existing structure and there will be caveats attached. You will need to potentially increase cover /sum insured once a certificate of completion has been issued, this is when the Contractors All Risks cover will cease.

Always tell your insurer if having building works. Each one will have different thresholds and criteria. They are likely to want to see the contractors insurance to ensure they have adequate cover of there is a loss.

The insurance brokers Adrian Flux generally manage to find cover for stuff your run of the mill insurer isn't keen on.

If you are project managing the work yourself and employing the services of various tradesmen you may need your own contractors all risk cover for a one off self-build.

jaundicedoutlook our policy (with Aviva) is very clear that we must inform them of undertaking building work. When I did they advised that anything over £20k and it would void the whole policy. So if our tumble dryer set on fire i.e. absolutely nothing to do with the building work, we wouldn't be covered. If we had a break in or a flood from rain water again not covered. We aren't insuring the building work, our builder has the relevant insurance for that.

Muststopeating yes, I'm talking about 1. The builder sorts out 2. Aviva has been very clear that they will not cover 1 because we are having building work done. Regardless of whether the building impacts 1 or if it is completely separate.

Aviva have allowed me to cancel the policy so I don't have a cancelled policy to declare.

@dotdashdashdash

jaundicedoutlook our policy (with Aviva) is very clear that we must inform them of undertaking building work. When I did they advised that anything over £20k and it would void the whole policy. So if our tumble dryer set on fire i.e. absolutely nothing to do with the building work, we wouldn't be covered. If we had a break in or a flood from rain water again not covered. We aren't insuring the building work, our builder has the relevant insurance for that.

Muststopeating yes, I'm talking about 1. The builder sorts out 2. Aviva has been very clear that they will not cover 1 because we are having building work done. Regardless of whether the building impacts 1 or if it is completely separate.

They can be as clear as they like, but an insurer that avoided a consumer claim because a condition or warranty unrelated to the loss had been breached would have it overturned by the FOS in a heartbeat.

@LittleOverwhelmed urgh what a pain for you and @dotdashdashdash. I really hate insurance companies... this whole thread just shows how much they have you over a barrel no matter how honest you try to be.

@dotdashdashdash I really would recommend giving churchill a call. They might not take you on as new like littleoverwhelmed discovered with other providers but you might be lucky. I have found them very cooperative in a host of circumstances. I was worried about your exact scenario playing out when I contacted them (so did it early) but they didn't blink. Though as I said it may have been different if we were moving out.

@littleoverwhelmed I think we are on the same extension thread... we should possibly let the early birds know that they should look at switching insurance companies in advance.

Hope you get something sorted. What a headache you don't need!

We are with Direct Line snd we haven't had to pay any extra premium. I rang them to inform them and they have increased our excess for a few types of claim, plus we aren't covered if we give our builder a key and he steals from us- fair enough!

Their magic number seems to be £150k- as our build cost is below that they didn't seem to be too concerned by anything.

Once the build is finished they said we'll need to pay an extra c£20 a year as we'll have another bathroom.

One point with ours- we aren't moving out at any point. Not sure how much it would have affected things if we were but Direct Line were brilliant when I rang them so I'd highly recommend.

[quote LittleOverwhelmed]@Ecthelion can I ask who you used? We need to extend ours and have been quoted £780 for the extra 6 week extension... [/quote]
@LittleOverwhelmed I spoke to thehomeinsurer.co.uk who set us up with a company called Orwell that I'd never heard of which worried me a bit but it's underwritten by Lloyds of London so seems safe enough.

@LittleOverwhelmed

How did post office go?

I've just bought and we plan to start work in 3 months, so thinking ahead now!

Post office confirmed they are fine with it as long as you declare at the time of taking it out. They did not ask me the value of the work. I bought online.

Hope that helps all!

That's ok, no problem!

Also discovered that direct line were ok too, but they directed me to the select / premier version due to value of property.

I know this is from ages ago but we have just had the same issue and a broker was ready to charge us £1800 for cover.

Contacted Admiral and now we are covered and its worked out less than we were paying before! Huge thanks to the PP who recommended them. (Not an ad - I've had a very stressful few hours over this!)