Contents insurance overlap

[Herewegoagain85]

I'm sure I'm overcomplicating this but Admiral couldn't give me a straight answer on the phone.

We're moving our contents insurance from our existing property to another. For the sake of this example, moving day will be Wednesday 3rd June - so they're saying the policy on our existing property will end at midnight Tuesday 2nd June.

However, what happens if there is a fire / burglary at 2am on Wednesday 3rd? They're saying we're not covered as the insurance would be on the new property.

But we're not moving until 11am, so we need a bit of overlap.

Surely this happens aaaall the time.

For the sake of a few quid, just make sure there's an overlap of a day between properties

If you're using the same insurance company they probably won't charge you anything. just make sure they know your completion date on the new place so you're on risk from whenever you take possession.

They said it's not possible to have two policies running at the same time though - it just seems so complicated for something that shouldn't be.

If they can't have one policy ending at 12:00 midnight on Tuesday 2 June and the other policy starting at 12:01am on Wednesday 3 June I'd change your insurance company.

That's not what OP wants, though. She wants it to change to new property at the time they leave the old one- not midnight before.

That's exactly right. You'd think there would be a grace overlap period. Annoyingly Admiral are the cheapest, but maybe I need to get a brand new policy with someone.else, but cancel within the cooling period once I've actually moved everything over.

If you're buying, not renting, did you know that solicitors now recommend you take out insurance on the new property from the date of exchanging contracts?, not from completion.

It's because when you've exchanged contracts you can't legally get out of the purchase even if something happens to the property before you get possession.

If Admiral won't be flexible I would take out a policy with someone else for the new house.

Oh, reading your OP again I see you say contents only. So either you have a separate buildings policy, or you will be renting so you only need contents. I can see why you want a day's overlap though, to cover moving - :very sensible. Honestly, I would just go to someone else for the new policy. They're being awkward, so they'll lose you as a customer. Like you say, surely this must happen all the time.

The OP gave the scenario of midnight so I just played that scenario through.

my advice still remains. Use the existing cover with Admiral and find a new insurance policy to start from the time needed on the new property so their contents are fully covered with no gap.

I teach a course on this exact issue in the reinsurance industry - we always encourage the language "1st Jan to 31st Dec both days inclusive" to avoid these kinds of small gaps in contract wordings.

Appreciate this doesn't address your specific issue - but you are not being silly to raise it!