No house insurance!

david1946

Has anyone ever said !!!! it, after 40 years of building and contents insurance and never making a claim and decided not to renew their building and contents insurance?

Quentin

Only a fool.

Or a very rich person who could rebuild the house if it was gutted by a fire or other catastrophe

paddyandstumpy

If you have a mortgage you may find it a condition of the mortgage that the buildings are insured.

As above, only those who can afford to self insure should.

dunstonh

david1946 wrote: »

Has anyone ever said !!!! it, after 40 years of building and contents insurance and never making a claim and decided not to renew their building and contents insurance?

Only if they are mad.

House insurance costs so little yet cover so much. I hope I go my life without needing to claim on my house insurance (or any insurance for that matter).

Aretnap

david1946 wrote: »

Has anyone ever said !!!! it, after 40 years of building and contents insurance and never making a claim and decided not to renew their building and contents insurance?

Yes, a work colleague proudly told me that having paid off his mortgage he wasn't going to pay for buildings insurance anymore, as it was a waste of money and he'd never claimed.

About a year later a storm blew a good chunk of is roof off. Cost him thousands. Muppet. (I didn't actually call him that, as I don't think he saw the funny side).

david1946

I never said I was not going to buy insurance, I just wondered if anyone had.

Aretnap

david1946 wrote: »

I never said I was not going to buy insurance, I just wondered if anyone had.

Yes, some people have.

Some of them were lucky and saved some money. Others were unlucky and suffered big losses (like my colleague).

I'm not sure what insights you think you'd gain from a few people saying "I cancelled my insurance and never needed it" and a few more saying "well I cancelled mine and then got burgled/flooded/burned down"...?

00ec25

david1946 wrote: »

I never said I was not going to buy insurance, I just wondered if anyone had.

I have not had either contents or building insurance on my properties since 1997

the only claim I ever made was in the first year (1991) when my friend's car was broken into whilst we were in Wales and I claimed stolen contents under the all risks clause built into the blanket cover policy then in place as a mortgage condition. Yes that was financially worth it at the time, but I have never needed to claim since and have not missed paying out commission to insurance salesmen since that date.

make of that what you will.

I sleep soundly at night but am conscious of the risk of flooding since I live on a zone 2 floodplain - which because the map is not that accurate fails to appreciate the exact extra elevation of my house meaning it ain't gonna happen to me

System

Self-insurance is perfectly logical if you personally have sufficient spread of risk.

A rule of thumb might be that if the total loss of one of your assets equals the cost of insurance of all of them, you might decide to self-insure. So if you own 100 houses it might make sense, as probably only one might burn down each year..
I was told once that the railways didn't insure their wagons or vehicles - they had a million, so writing off a few didn't matter.
But are you a billionaire?

eddddy

I guess, in theory, a 'mid-point' could be to get a policy with a very high excess - say £20k.

That should reduce premiums very dramatically, but provide cover for a disaster.

But I'm not sure whether 'off the shelf' insurers offer that option.