Lender wants to be joint policyholder on building insurance - which insurer?

Rollinghills

Can anyone advise please? Nationwide asked the building insurance be in JOINT NAMES (hubby's and theirs). But so far the insurers I've tried can only add an actual person as a joint policy holder, ie you have to answer questions about their profession, date of birth etc. Clearly can't do that for Nationwide.

Does anyone know any insurers who will do that? Or should I call the insurer and ask if they can add Nationwide later manually? I'm a bit stuck and I need to do it ideally tomorrow as we hope to exchange on Monday. Please help!

Carrera74

My lender is on my insurance document but as a financial interest not as a policy holder - I think all insurers would do that for you - I haven't had any problems and I change my insurance companies every few years. I think this is probably what they want not to necessarily be a policy holder?

Rollinghills

Yes, that's no problem. But nationwide says clearly JOINT policyholder!
I quote

Where our security is a freehold title, the policy must be in yours and Nationwide's joint names. Where our security is a leasehold title, our interest must be noted.

So they make the distinction between 'interest noted' and joint. I'm stuck! Just called esure who gave me a good quote but they said it is not possible as joint, they can only note their interest.

anselld

Rollinghills wrote: »

Yes, that's no problem. But nationwide says clearly JOINT policyholder!

That is bonkers - ask them to pay for half the premium!

How will they know anyway? Is this an insurance at exchange prior to the mortgage being drawn?

Rollinghills

Yes, at exchange! Grrrr. Hubby is calling Nationwide now. Good one about them paying half the premium!

Our solicitor will be checking this I think, he already mentioned it with regards to mortgage requirements.

goodwithsaving

when i organised insurance and said it was mortgaged, the insurer asked for the mortgage provider name. could this be what they're after?

(sorry - just read more above. already had this mentioned!)

Kittycat1981

We had to put our mortgage lender on our building insurance - me, hubby and interested party (the lender) our solicitor explained that it was so if anything went wrong and we needed to claim on the building insurance - our lender would be informed so that we didnt do a runner with the insurance money (!) or something along those lines.

We went with swift cover, it specifically asked about interested party - with a space on the quote application to put the lenders details in.

Our lender is named on our policy documents- these were sent to the solicitor before completion.

lee111s

Just remortgaged to Nationwide and didn't have this issue.

Seems a strange one.

Rollinghills

Nightmare trying to get any info out of Nationwide. I am seriously disappointed with them compared to HSBC in any case.

The solicitor told us to ignore it basically and just note lender's interest.

This will be a further point of complaint because it is an anti-competitive practice that may be forcing buyers to take out insurance with Nationwide even though they are not allowed to make their insurance compulsory. It has given us additional stress we don't need!

kingstreet

I have a Nationwide offer in front of me. It reads;-

Buildings Insurance

It is your responsibility to ensure that the building is adequately insured and that the insurance policy is placed on risk at the
appropriate time.

The minimum buildings sum insured required is £105,000.00. If your property is of a non standard construction, has special features or is listed, you should obtain a detailed assessment of the reinstatement cost to ensure that your property is insured for the correct rebuild cost. If our offer quotes a minimum buildings insured figure and this is lower than your assessment recommends, you must increase the level of cover accordingly.

The following risks must also be covered by the policy: fire, lightning, aircraft, explosion, earthquake, storm, flood, escape of water or oil, riot, malicious damage, theft or attempted theft, falling trees and branches and aerials, subsidence, heave, landslip, collision, accidental damage to underground services, and public liability.

Where your buildings will be insured other than by a policy offered through Nationwide, Nationwide's agreement to the alternative insurance is conditional upon maintenance of a policy which at all times covers the full re-building cost of the property, including associated professional fees and site clearance.

Buildings insurance cover must commence no later than:
• For house purchase loans, exchange of contracts (conclusion of missives in Scotland) unless you are buying a brand new property, in which case it must commence from the completion of the mortgage;
• For re-mortgages, the completion of the mortgage unless you have asked for the cover to commence before our mortgage starts.

Please note;

Details of your Nationwide home insurance premium, if applicable, are not included within this offer. Please refer to your written quote for this information. Should you have any questions regarding your insurance prior to completion of your mortgage, contact your Mortgage Consultant, Local Branch or Nationwide Direct on 0800 302010.

The conveyancer must ensure that the policy satisfies all of our requirements, including those in our instructions which are detailed in the CML website version of the CML Lenders' Handbook current at the date of this offer and those in our Mortgage Conditions.

No mention of either joint cover, or lender interest to be noted.

Where have you got this? From the lender or solicitor?

Rollinghills

Thanks Kingstreet. It is straight from our mortgage offer.

I don't have it with me at the moment (hubby took it to work to call Nationwide). But above I quoted word for word from the Mortgage offer document. Here it is again


"Where our security is a freehold title, the policy must be in yours and Nationwide's joint names. Where our security is a leasehold title, our interest must be noted."

It then talks about the risks that have to be covered etc.

We suspect that this is some kind of old template they used. Nationwide managed to delete our application from their system. It was manually re-inputted so I wonder if the offer was issued manually and the person used an old format. Is this possible? It has been denied by Nationwide but their helpline is useless and not possible to speak to anyone with authority. Clearly it must be a mistake as it is not their standard document! This has caused us a serious amount of stress days before exchange.