Buyer has taken out insurance before contracts exchanged

jenny74

fimonkey wrote: »

It does raise some interesting questions in regards to if there was a claim whilst two policies were taken out on the same thing. If this was a car I think it'd be classed fraud and both policies would refuse to pay out. Worth checking with your insurance company that (God forbid) were your house to burn down no wthey'd pay out TO YOU and not your buyer (or not at all).

BW

I

It would not be classed as fraud, even on a motor policy. It is called dual Insurance. Someone buying my car would insure it for themselves to drive before collecting it and I wouldn't cancel mine until it had gone. If the purchaaer of OPs house is hoping to exchange soon, then he is just being proactive... The mortgage co will insist on Insurance being in place by exchange.

Don't worry about it, Op. Nothing untoward!

fimonkey

RE: car insurance, they would have their policy from the time they collected it, and thats when you'd cancel yours,... but if you were late cancelling yours and they crashed on way home and tried to claim, and it came up on the insurance database that the car was insured twice, they would have one heck of a battle to prove it was legit....... I'm talking from experience of this situation and beleive me the insurance company used every which way to try and wiggle out of paying including accusing me of fraud! I'm not an insurance expert however.

Anyway its off topic, just giving my opinion.

BW

dacouch

It is not illegal to insure something including cars twice, it is illegall however to try and claim off both companies as this would then become fraud

dlk

If you've exchanged contracts it's perfectly normal. He would be tied to purchase it still if something were damaged so buildings insurance should be commenced on exchange of contracts.

brightonman123

i bet ins co would let anyone pay premiums to insure.. but when it comes to a claim..

jassco

tek-monkey wrote: »

I was told to have insurance by exchange, but with no firm date for exchange! Therefore I got some from last Wednesday, even though I'll likely not exchange til this wed. I'd rather pay an extra week, than risk it not going through on time.

I'm in exact same position, so just took a guess at when I'd need the insurance policy to start.

To the OP, how do you know that the policy wasn't due to start a few weeks later, but the documents were sent out early? Because once you'd realised they weren't for you, then you shouldn't have kept reading. In fact, I'm unsure why you opened someone else's mail in the first place as I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been your name on the front of the letter.

Richard_Webster

Quote:
Originally Posted by tek-monkey
I was told to have insurance by exchange, but with no firm date for exchange! Therefore I got some from last Wednesday, even though I'll likely not exchange til this wed. I'd rather pay an extra week, than risk it not going through on time.
I'm in exact same position, so just took a guess at when I'd need the insurance policy to start.

To the OP, how do you know that the policy wasn't due to start a few weeks later, but the documents were sent out early? Because once you'd realised they weren't for you, then you shouldn't have kept reading. In fact, I'm unsure why you opened someone else's mail in the first place as I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been your name on the front of the letter.

This is it. I constantly get people saying their insurers won't start the policy until we have exchanged and want to know the "exchange date". My reply is that if I knew when it was going to be we would have already have exchanged! So, it is inevitable that people will insure before they strictly need to because even when it looks as though exchange is imminent we don't know how long it will be just to catch all the solicitors in the chain in and telling us that they are ready so we can actually do the exchange.

Patr100

But there's no real need to do it too early.
You can phone/search - get the best quote then once exchanged , a phone call/instant online application will put the policy into force in a matter of minutes so you'll be covered from then, with the relevant docs then sent on within a few days.

tek-monkey

Well I excahnge today, so only wasted a weeks worth of insurance. In the grand scheme of things a fiver is sod all, its taken me so long to get here I don't mind spending a few quid to make sure it all goes through ASAP.

As for the insurance, I was told its in the unlikely event of the house becoming damaged between exchange and completion and the vendor having no insurance.

puddy

we couldnt exchange until we had proof of the insurance, so i bought mine early too