Home buildings insurance woes

Grumpy2_2

My buildings insurance for my house has been with "Company B" for the last few years. Last October I made a claim because a slab of concrete at the side of the house, with a prefabricated garage built on it had moved slightly down a slope to the side of the house. This had been built there by a previous owner many years ago. It has been deemed "consolidation subsidence."
Company B accepted the claim and are processing it at a snail's pace, 10 months have passed and work to rectify the problem has yet to start! I had a visit last week from the building company that will carry out the work and he gave me the impression it could easily take another 5 or 6 months to complete!
In the meantime my buildings insurance has just expired and Company B inform me they can not provide me with a new quote for the coming 12 months. They say reason for this is because they have gone from a panel of underwriters to just one and this new company won't take on the risk. There's not a problem with the ongoing claim, just getting cover for this next 12 months. There's no suggestion that there's any problem with subsidence affecting the house, btw.
I've spoken to the original underwriting company but they say I'm in effect a new customer to them so their underwriters don't want to provide cover and I need to press Company B to continue to provide me with cover mentioning an "unwritten law" that company B are obliged to help. Company B say they can't/won't help for the reasons already stated.
I've spoken to the Insurance Ombudsman and the FSA to no avail. A very helpful chap at BIBA says getting me cover will be no problem once the work is completed but until then it's unlikely.
I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall here!
Obviously I'm anxious about having no buildings insurance plus the added worry of letting a building firm loose to knock the old garage down and remove a 30 ton concrete slab then lay a new one with no buildings insurance in place, regardless of how much public liability cover they've got.
Anybody got any ideas or suggestions how I can move forward on this?

dacouch

What is the name of the underwriting agency, who is the actual Insurer (The actual underwriter)

Grumpy2_2

Company B's underwriter at the time was Aviva. Their new underwriter is L&G who I know like 15 years to elapse before they'll deal with customers who have made subsidence claims.

dacouch

Ok what you need to do is find a good local broker with a decent size Aviva account and a good relation with Aviva.

You need to have your policy number and claim reference numbers, they should then be able to arrange you a standard Aviva policy including subsidence.

I assume you rang Aviva direct when you were turned down.

I've had a few similar cases with Aviva and providing you have the above numbers that they can check they will offer cover assuming everything else is acceptable about you eg no criminal convictions etc.

You should be able to find one through this http://avivafindabroker.biba.org.uk/

Do not use a chain broker like Swintons or Colinade, try and find a local broker with an office local to you if possible.

Grumpy2_2

Many thanks, Dacouch.
I'll let you know how I get on.