Will we always have subsidence claim on our insurance?

[Purplehummingbirds]

Hi,

We bought a house 4 years ago. It had an old small extension- an office. The room subsided. The area isn't one of subsidence in general (ie neighbours have regular insurance) but it has clay soil and the foundations of the office were so shallow. The insurance company also cited nearby tree as a problem but it's clear in hindsight it was mainly a rubbish extension.

We claimed on insurance and they rebuilt it. (Maybe it was daft to claim, anyway we did). Now insurers charge an extra £600 (after some negotiation).

Please can someone advise on a few points?
1.will we always have subsidence claim on our insurance even if we move in say 5 or 10 years? And when we come to sell would we write on the form that part of the property faced subsidence even though that part has been replaced by an adequate structure. The property is no greater risk than others, just unfortunately the extension was rubbish and we claimed.

1. Would it be worse or better if we moved insurer, particularly to a subsidence insurer? Or would that look worse if we sold?

1. What documents should we have re the claim? We have their initial report on the issue but nothing about the structure they rebuilt.

Thanks everyone, any guidance appreciated :)

If you move to a different house, you don’t need to disclose the subsidence claim as long as it is outside the time period the insurers are requesting (most ask for claims in the last 5 years, some go a bit further back)

Whoever is sourcing insurance for the property itself will have to disclose it though, however long it has been since the issue. I would ensure that, should you sell the property in the future, you provide the new owners with all the relevant paperwork in regards to the claim, and also the details of the insurer you are with as they (should!!!) honour the cover. Insurers do get a bit cautious when the ‘s’ word is mentioned, and don’t like to take on properties that have had any adverse history (especially at the moment when they seem to find any excuse to decline/restrict cover…) but there are insurers out there who do more non-standard insurance that would probably take it on.

Thanks, our original insurer is still taking it on. That's because they know in reality the rest of the house doesn't carry the risk. If we'd knocked down the rubbish extension everything would be ok.

I asked them for all relevant paperwork for selling. I'm really upset we bought this house as we'll definitely lose in comparison to other, seemingly similar choices. Not much we can do. And we're fortunate we don't need to move for at least 4 years, might be ok much longer.

We had this. I got a surveyor report and that meant that it wasn't included anymore. It was about 10 years after the previous owners had claimed though.

Ah that's interesting. Did you have a similar issue that the structure was the issue and it was rebuilt? Just wondering why the new report differed?

Also it's a bit tricky because the insurance company are also blaming a tree, and did it so they could put the council under notice. However the arborist was sceptical and thought really the issue was mainly the structure and partly the soil. I'm not sure our 1st report was very good in hindsight or how a new one would turn out.