Home insurance- ?how many bedrooms

PrettyFlower90

So I'm just wanting to see if anyone else has experience of this, or if their house is the same.

Our house (when we bought it last year) was advertised as a 7 bedroom house. Orginially the house was a 6 bedroom house with an internal single garage. The previous owners converted the garage into a room instead with a jack and jill type ensuite- i.e. the downstairs WC has a door to this room and another door leading to the hall.

Obviously for home insurance we need to give how many bedrooms the house has. Last year we just gave 7, but that was hard to find an insurer that insured for 7 bedrooms, many only did up to 6, and the one we eventually went with online, then had to change our details and the premium went up once they knew it was 7 bedrooms.

The help given on these online forms for home insurance state that you need to include all rooms that wee originally designed as a bedroom even if not used as one now. How do we classify this conversion? We don't use it as a bedroom as it's downstairs, but how do we know what insurers will class it as? It would make it a lot easier to have it as a 6 bed house with an extra living room, but also don't want to end up "invalidating" our policy by giving wrong information.

Has anyone else converted their garage downstairs with or without WC access, and how have you insured your house with respect to this room?

Thank you!

huckster

The bedrooms is mostly a way of Insurers assessing the rebuilding cost and likely estimated value of Contents for a typical house. That is why it asks for bedrooms the house had originally. In some houses, large bedrooms are divided up into 2 rooms, but installing a partition. The house has not suddenly become bigger.

So the answer is that the house is a 6 bedroom house, as originally built. The garage being converted has not increased the risk due to size change. An internal garage was converted and you don't use it as a bedroom anyway.

Have you ever checked whether any necessary planning consents were obtained for the garage conversion into a bedroom? Might not have been required, but if ever look to sell the house, this issue might be raised by buyers Solicitors.

PrettyFlower90

Thanks for your reply.

Yes all necessary checks were done, but that's a separate issue entirely and not relevant as we're not selling any time soon.

I know the house hasn't gotten bigger at such, just wasn't sure if insurers would class it as 7 bedrooms due to it having an ensuite even. I'm just worried that if we went for 6 and, touch wood, something major happened and we needed to claim they would say that we weren't truthful. As quotes for 7 bedrooms with 2 reception rooms compared to 6 bedrooms with 3 reception rooms does increase our premiums in all companies we've looked at.

huckster

If you are worried enough, then you MUST speak to any Insurers/brokers about this issue and not ask on an internet forum.

My experience having dealt with Home Insurance for decades is that Insurers are assessing size of the house risk. They look at RICS ( chartered surveyors) tables for the type of house ( detached, semi), approx year of constructions and number of bedrooms, to assess the approx rebuild costs. The type of policy offered may be for a large fixed amount i.e up to £1 million sum Insured or unlimited. But the premium is based on a notional rebuilding cost worked out using RICS tables.

Many Insurances are not based on exact rebuild cost shown in a surveyors report but an estimated amount. They assess this using the RICS tables and from memory these only go up to 6 beds. For 7 beds or more, then the basis of the Insurance calculation is different.

You have basically bought a 6 bed house, with a converted internal garage. I would say 6 beds for purpose of Insurance quotes, but you must get it from the Insurers directly and not take my word for it.

Nb. I raise issue of conversion/planning, as many people make the mistake of not keeping all paperwork from buying a house and years later when they come to sell they get into difficulty.

Tom99

Can you not count the ex garage as a living room?