home insurance subsidence question

patchy987

hi, ok so spoke to my insurers today who have decided they dont want to renew my insurance unless i provide a structural engineers report to prove i have no problems, as they have been dealing with 3 subsidence claims on my road, NOT MY HOUSE

i have spoken to my close neighbours and its not them, the insurers wont tell me how far away the subsidence is so i am at a loss as cant even get quotes elsewhere without this info.

the only thing i can think of is when quoting with confused it only asks if my house has suffered from subsidence, not the area, could i get away with just answering that question truthfully or do i still have to tell them about the apparant problems in my area.

benjaminM

Most insurers have databases of postcodes that are at risk of subsidence or flooding. These databases differ from insurer to insurer. For instance an area close to our office is classed as flood risk by Axa by is perfectly fine with the likes of RSA, Aviva, Fortis etc. It depends on their particular claims experience in that area.

I cant comment about confused or any of the aggregators because I dont use them. What I would recommend is that you contact an insurance broker or insurer direct so you can speak to someone. In most cases a broker will quote you based on the post code and risk details. It quite possible that there will be a decent number of insurers who will quote. The broker or advisor at the insurer would then simply refer your query to an underwritter and hopefully it would be agreed. Providing the area is not flagged by all insuers as a major risk you should not penalised just because there are a few houses nearby with subsidence.

Hope this helps

patchy987

benjaminM wrote: »

Most insurers have databases of postcodes that are at risk of subsidence or flooding. These databases differ from insurer to insurer. For instance an area close to our office is classed as flood risk by Axa by is perfectly fine with the likes of RSA, Aviva, Fortis etc. It depends on their particular claims experience in that area.

I cant comment about confused or any of the aggregators because I dont use them. What I would recommend is that you contact an insurance broker or insurer direct so you can speak to someone. In most cases a broker will quote you based on the post code and risk details. It quite possible that there will be a decent number of insurers who will quote. The broker or advisor at the insurer would then simply refer your query to an underwritter and hopefully it would be agreed. Providing the area is not flagged by all insuers as a major risk you should not penalised just because there are a few houses nearby with subsidence.

Hope this helps

you have pretty much confirmed what i thought, the only thing annoying me is my insurance is currently through a broker and they are flatly refusing to put me with any other insurers because of what my current insurer has said.

as for trying other brokers, i have tried but without knowing how far away the subsidence problem is they wont quote me either.

benjaminM

You could try a large national broker like Giles or Protecta Group. Protecta group are owned by CCV which is a part of Towergate. They specialise in all types of household and usually pretty accomdating.

patchy987

thanks, will try them