Insurance for an upper conversion - help!!!

[Snappyteabread]

we live in an upper conversion which is over 2 levels - something like the ones here. I'm now totally confused what we should be calling this when we do a quote for home buildings and contents insurance. For those of you who live in upper conversions (which are over 2 floors) a) who is your home insurance with and b) what "property type" have you selected for your policy?
One place told me this is "maisonette converted" as we have an internal staircase, and someone else said its "top floor flat converted"

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-56106048.html
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-66711290.html
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-73789460.html

Mine is with Privilege - and I even rang them up to confirm that I had used the right category. I think it was "maisonette" in their case.

Think I found them via confused.com but it might have been CompareTheMarket.com. I've been with them 3 years now - even though I check their renewal premium (buildings and contents) each year, they still come out as amongst the cheapest.

It is sometimes difficult to find insurance as some of the insurance companies can't cope with the fact that there is no leasehold in Scotland and we jointly, with our downstairs neighbours, are responsible for the roof and foundations

We were with LV= before - only moved from them because trying to insure bikes more expensive than £300 each made their quote prohibitive. Until then they'd been good value and dealt well with our claims (over about 10 years, 2 bikes and one water damage to our neighbours )

Dh calls our house a "horizontal semi": the 1st and attic floors (with entrance on the ground floor) of a Victorian stone villa.

We're not far from two of the properties you linked to

Than you for that. will need to keep doing some homework. Halifax quote is very high. But perhaps we have been paying the wrong price for years as we had the wrong property description.

Iirc, the conversation I had confirmed that we counted as a maisonette as we have our own discrete front door and not a shared vestibule.

I grew up in a house like this - known as a maisonette, or upper villa.

the plot thickens....... Direct Line have told me its classed as a semi detached house - "if a semi detached house is split into 2 maisonettes its rated as a semi detached house" - aaagggh! Need to keep calling round different insurers.

Prettybird - we have a shared hallway, and then stairs leading to our front door. So it sounds like we might be different from yours.....

That's why I find it such a nightmare to change insurers.

Have you tried comparethemarket.com? Iirc, their questions seemed to cover the different variants (especially if you looked up the "i" for additional information) - or at least enough to then ring up and check.

Privilege still came up as one of the best for my renewal. Lloyds Bank also came out well.

The important thing is that you send your insurers an email telling them your house details and get a reply. That way they cant say that you withheld information or misled them in the event of a claim.

We’ve had similar problems with insurers insisting that the rebuild costs for our conversion / semi was half the purchase value. When it’s not of course.

OMG - it's that time of year again, and I have to phone round lots of clueless people, trying to get them to tell me what type of house I live in, and none of them willing to give me this info in writing!!!

Looking at my docs, we are currently insured as a "maisonette" but I'm still not convinced this is correct. We share a main door with our neighbours, have a shared hallway, and then go up a stair, where we have our own "front" door into our house.

My insurance brokers (Advance) say that Maisonette is the correct category. I think this year we're with Covea - contents and building - for our upper conversion.

Today Halifax have told me it is "converted maisonette". and told me they cannot give me a join buildings and contents policy, so I have to do 2 separate quotes. Let's see.....

They also asked me the question "are you the freeholder for the whole building?" I think the answer to that is no, as my neighbours downstairs obviously also have responsibility for the building too, eg the roof. I'm wondering if that means actually we should have a joint buildings policy with our neighbours downstairs, and then our own separate contents insurance.

PRETTY BIRD - I will check out COVEA - haven't heard of them before.

My combined buildings and insurance (4 bedroom conversion in a conservation area) was just over £500, including expensive bikes and an extension to cover ds' stuff (and bike ) up at Uni.

Although I do look around myself each year, I have ended up staying with the broker (Advance) as they find as good a deal, if not better, as any I manage to find - and cope with the Scottish conversions/maisonettes (I do always double check).

They moved me last year to Covea (I'm sure that was the name, I'll need to go and check my documents again) and this year, although it went up slightly, they still offered the best deal.

Yes we are generally around £500 building and contents, so similar to you.
That's a good idea to go to a broker. Do you do that online or over the phone or in person?

Mine are over the phone - initially started using them as they came up with the best quote on one of the comparison websites. I also now use them for my car insurance (come to think of it, not sure which came first: car or home insurance).

And I used to get the same nonsense as you from some insurers who couldn't understand that we don't heave leasehold for flats and conversions here and that we if we had such a thing effectively share the "freehold". Ie that we are jointly responsible for the (shared) roof and (shared) foundations/damp-proof course. The Law of the Tenement is a wonderful thing for defining shared responsibilities

I'll PM you the details.