Buildings and contents renewal help?

gingapete

Good afternoon,

I have a question as regards my house and contents renewalfrom my house insurer and I think it’s a little high even with the previousowners claim. Here is the history… I purchased the house over 8 years ago andat the time of purchase it was going through a claim for distortion to the frontcorner and drain defects which after inspection was the replacement of a jointin the drainage pipe as it had been leaking over time. Some of the workcompleted included some flexi bars being put in to the front and gable wall andother minor repairs to plaster work inside where work was carried out.

The contractor and insurance company said that there was noneed for underpinning or any other structural work as they had been monitoringthe house for a year and there was no other movement.

I called the insurance company before completing thepurchase and asked them for some guidance about the claim and me taking overthe policy when purchasing the house and they sent me a copy of a letter dateda year before the purchase, and the repairs, to the original owner stating basicallythat any buyer would have to take over the claim if the house was sold and itwould have to be transferred by solicitors and that I would have a new insurance policy with the oldpolicy registered against it with a note to say “Please note the claim will not affect their Policy”

All the work was carried out and passed by the contractor, inspectorand insurance company and the house purchase went through with no problems onthe mortgage or insurance.

Over a year later I noticed that there were cracks appearingin the walls were previous cracks had been and that the drain was not drainingproperly. So I called the insurance and they sent out an inspector and the ballstarted rolling again. To cut the story short… The conclusion was that thedrain had not been connected properly, they monitored the cracks for a year andno more movement had occurred so they then corrected the drain work and afterstripping back the plasterwork revealed that the heli bars had not been put incorrectly or deep enough to make difference to the previous movement. All thiswould be corrected and there was no cost as it was an existing original claimand it would not affect my insurance policy.

I recently received a renewal through and my combinedbuildings and contents insurance is now nearly £800! And for some reason theyhave automatically put an “Extended contents any one time” cover on my contentsinsurance of £95 that I never asked for.

The house has had no problems for the past 6 years and I haverecently extended the house and underpinned the front and back of the house,removed the drain work which was the problem and had all this work passed by localbuilding inspectors. All this was reported to the insurance company and extrainsurance was added to the policy and removed once completed.

I have just completed an online USWITCH and input all thedetails and included that there was underpinning and that there was no claim inthe last 5 years and both buildings and contents insurance come in between £200and £350 in total! Now I wouldn’t just go complete it on line but this was a quicktester too see what quotes would be out there.

I have the documents that state there was no need forsubsidence underpinning and that once repairs have been fully corrected andarea has time to dry and settle that there would be no need for further work.

It seems that because of the original contractor not doingthe repair correctly and this not being picked up by the insurance companiesinspector that the problem re-occurred and had to be completed successfully whichit now has and we have had no problems for over 5 years.

So am I being over charged on both building and contents?Building insurance £440 and Contents insurance £270?

So what grounds do I have in asking for this to be reduced?

If anyone is thinking why did he underpin if it was notneeded? I made sure that we excavated the area and added the concrete underpinningfor my own peace of mind as this is my family home.

Thanks in advance

Quentin

No-one can advise on whether or not you are being overcharged on the information given.


A local broker (not Swinton) may be able to advise, but will need you to provide all the relevant info to be able to help.

InsideInsurance

Your problem is that whilst you havent made a claim there is normally a question similar to "has the property ever suffered from subsidence, movement, landslip etc" and to this you'd have to answer yes even if it was underpinned as a result. Some wont actually do it as a question but it will be an assumption that it hasnt that you have to confirm is correct (along with a load of others like bankruptcy, fraud etc)

When you did the uSwitch quotes did you answer yes to the question?

If you did and people are still quoting and still including Subsidence cover with the normal excess etc then sounds sensible to switch insurers. Speak to your own first to see if they will do anything on their price but that is a big difference to close.

If you didnt, which is what I suspect (or you agreed to the assumptions when you shouldnt) then you will get a very different result with many declining, some excluding subsidence and maybe a few specialists offering cover but with a high premium and maybe an increased subsidence excess

gingapete

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Your problem is that whilst you havent made a claim there is normally a question similar to "has the property ever suffered from subsidence, movement, landslip etc" and to this you'd have to answer yes even if it was underpinned as a result. Some wont actually do it as a question but it will be an assumption that it hasnt that you have to confirm is correct (along with a load of others like bankruptcy, fraud etc)

When you did the uSwitch quotes did you answer yes to the question?

If you did and people are still quoting and still including Subsidence cover with the normal excess etc then sounds sensible to switch insurers. Speak to your own first to see if they will do anything on their price but that is a big difference to close.

If you didnt, which is what I suspect (or you agreed to the assumptions when you shouldnt) then you will get a very different result with many declining, some excluding subsidence and maybe a few specialists offering cover but with a high premium and maybe an increased subsidence excess

Re-ran the info with yes ticked and quote is £405 The Policy Shop and £535 Home Fresh.. Not sure on these two but they are on USwitch? So a saving of between £260 - £400?

Anyone know about these companies as ive never heard of them myself

InsideInsurance

gingapete wrote: »

Re-ran the info with yes ticked and quote is £405 The Policy Shop and £535 Home Fresh.. Not sure on these two but they are on USwitch? So a saving of between £260 - £400?

Anyone know about these companies as ive never heard of them myself

Did you go through to see if Subsidence is covered and the excess is the normal £1k?

In my distance memory I believe Towergate used to do a subsided home insurance policy which did cover subsidence claims going forward but it had something like a £15k or £20k excess on these claims - I could be making that up though.

Both are brokers and so will sell a range of products from a number of insurers. It could be a specialist product like the Towergate one mentioned above but before buying you need to ensure what the cover/ excess is.

Also speak to your own insurers saying you are getting lower quotes even factoring in the prior issues the property has had and see if they'll do anything

gingapete

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Did you go through to see if Subsidence is covered and the excess is the normal £1k?

In my distance memory I believe Towergate used to do a subsided home insurance policy which did cover subsidence claims going forward but it had something like a £15k or £20k excess on these claims - I could be making that up though.

Both are brokers and so will sell a range of products from a number of insurers. It could be a specialist product like the Towergate one mentioned above but before buying you need to ensure what the cover/ excess is.

Also speak to your own insurers saying you are getting lower quotes even factoring in the prior issues the property has had and see if they'll do anything

I will check all details before buying as woudn't want to find out later that i needed to re-click something in small print before i would be covered or that it missed it off.

I will be speaking to my insurers tomorrow and see what they say, what with everything else going up in price and wages being frozen for years and still the same on the cards its all stretching the pocket a fair bit

rs65

Steve_Wyatt wrote: »

There are loads about. below is a list of companies you could try

Things must be tough at your firm at the moment. People come here for help, not to have Sales Managers of insurance brokers touting for business.

gingapete

rs65 wrote: »

Things must be tough at your firm at the moment. People come here for help, not to have Sales Managers of insurance brokers touting for business.

Wow didn't think about that at all how green am i?

Update... Went back to insurers and after having a run through and removing a bit on contents that i didn't need i got it down from the original £800 to £600 so a £200 saving is pretty good.

It seems that as there was a history of subsidence (even though it was only a rain water pipe connection not a colapsed drain or mineshaft ) i was informed that i will always have a very high buildings insurance and it wont matter that i haven't made a claim or that i have had the area underpinned and passed by a building inspector it will always be this way not the best news but if there isn't anything that i can do to get this reversed then it's a bit of an @rse but i still saved £200 in the end! :T
If anyone has had a similar experiecnce or has expert knowledge of how i can possibly better this for future renewal then i would be very grateful to hear about it.

Cheers everyone who commented and read this, hope you all have a cracking (not in your house walls kind of way) :pweekend!

Quentin

gingapete wrote: »

i was informed that i will always have a very high buildings insurance.....

Don't believe everything any insurance "advisor" tells you (although the insurance industry is highly regulated you will find that doesn't seem to extend to them having to know what they are talking about, and spouting anything to get a sale).


It maybe you will always have high insurance as long as you don't switch, but there are insurers that currently don't penalise you for ever with this in your history (eg. Legal and General - not a recommendation - don't want to know after 15 years without a subsidence related claim)


So do your own research, and don't rely on whoever you spoke to.

InsideInsurance

Quentin wrote: »

Don't believe everything any insurance "advisor" tells you (although the insurance industry is highly regulated you will find that doesn't seem to extend to them having to know what they are talking about, and spouting anything to get a sale).

I assume as per the "", the probability is the person that the OP was speaking to is not an advisor as the vast majority of personal lines general insurance is sold on a non-advised basis.

They should only inform the customer of their companies position but sometimes customers take information as advice or think the information applies to all companies or sometimes the representative does overstep the mark and does give either wrong information or advice (good or bad).

In my experience this was meant in goodwill and its just an error in judgement/ knowledge. Certainly my dealings with internal audit is that they do come down heavily on those that they catch. I had once case where someone got a written warning for gross misconduct because a customer phone up and said they were thinking of getting a £90k sports car and the representative said "nice car" which audit deemed to be advice - as far as I was concerned it was a fact not advice but thats another story.