Previous subsidence and premiums

simpav

Hi

We are currently 'tied' to our current home insurer due to previous subsidence to our property.

The yearly process we go through is to receive the renewal quote, obtain an online quote then ring them to negotiate a price.

In the previous years they've come somewhere near the online quote but this year they want 25% more than last year even though that was given with the knowledge of the subsidence .

This seems a really high increase.
Could people let us know if this is similar to the rises that they are experiencing.

Thanks

huckster

Hi

Premiums have generally gone up, so a 25% rise is not necessarily connected with previous subsidence issues.

If the subsidence occured many years ago (say 10 or more years), the house was fully underpinned or the subsidence was minor as caused by a temporary issue ( a tree planted too close to house) and now fully resolved; it would not be impossible to arrange alternative cover.

But other Insurers won't be too eager to obtain the business. For those that are willing to look at it, they will require a new structural engineers report, plus details of the works previously carrried out to the property. So it would be pretty costly and there would be no guarantee you would get the cost of the engineers report back, in savings made on Insurance.

You could look to change to a different supplier of the Insurance but maintain cover with the same Insurance underwriter. If you had Insurance with (say) Aviva who paid out on the subsidence claim, you might be able to move to another cheaper policy that is also underwritten by Aviva. Some Insurers will allow this, if you supplied details of the previous policy and claim details. It is worth looking into.

simpav

Thanks for your response huckster.

The damage occured about 5 years ago and to be honest the insurer has been fairly reasonable at renewal time.

Looking at other threads it does seem that people with underlying issues like flood or subsidence risk are experiencing big hikes in premiums.

I think I might write to the insurer and see what they say.