CRL/Alpha insurance for flats

taddo12

can I ask what everyone's experience was here? I was only recently told myself about the Alpha bankruptcy and am currently trying to sell my property also. Has anyone been able to find replacement insurance for individual units or are those all finished now?

Sunshineyellow12

Hi all, I’m currently in the same situation and can not believe that this is now our responsibility to resolve? Again, alpha insurance went bankrupt in April 2018 from my understand and we purchased the flat in January 2019 and at no point was it flagged to us. Why is there no support or anyone taking ownership of this? It’s utterly insane. Has anyone found any easier way through this? The thought of having to take the lead and organise it all is giving me a lot of stress! Not to mention wanting to sell and move on soon. Any advice or support would be really appreciated. Thank you

taddo12

Sunshineyellow12 said:

Hi all, I’m currently in the same situation and can not believe that this is now our responsibility to resolve? Again, alpha insurance went bankrupt in April 2018 from my understand and we purchased the flat in January 2019 and at no point was it flagged to us. Why is there no support or anyone taking ownership of this? It’s utterly insane. Has anyone found any easier way through this? The thought of having to take the lead and organise it all is giving me a lot of stress! Not to mention wanting to sell and move on soon. Any advice or support would be really appreciated. Thank you

Nothing I can say except that we're in the same boat, was in the middle of selling and fell through right before exchange due to this. No notification received when Alpha went bankrupt in 2018, just shocking. Currently in the process of trying to get replacement cover and thankfully the other property owners have been cooperative as they all want to resolve. Advantage Insurance are great, speak to them and someone from there should take you through the steps to get replacement cover.

In your case I would have thought that either your solicitors, the sellers' solicitors or your mortgage provider should have done their due diligence and informed you, I would get some legal advice if it's possible. Also if you want to apply for a refund for the period you won't be covered by Alpha you can do so via this link: 
https://administration.topdanmark.dk/alpha-insurance/return-of-premium/
If you don't hear from them within a couple weeks I'd chase with FSCS directly, it took them 8 months to get back to me before I just wrote to FSCS and got my refund. 

paperduck09

Messybiz said:

This relates to flats. My flat is 3 years' old and was insured with CRL/Alpha. After 6 months of hard work, my flat (and all the other flats in the block) has been successfully reinsured with ICW. Note that while there may be insurers out there who will insure a single flat, ICW will only insure the block as a whole. So if you want to follow a similar path, and in the quite probable event that neither the freeholder nor the Management Co will take responsibility, then one of the flatowners will need to take the lead for ALL flats. It will involve a lot of stamina and time and information gathering (property plans, lots of other documents etc) and a lot of liaison with flatowners and others. In my case, the original architects were really helpful in supplying plans and other documents (planning and building approval certificates, gas and electrical certificates etc) and the company who did the piling provided piling logs and the like. The cost worked out at about £1400 per flat on average. For anti-money laundering reasons, ICW said that payment HAD TO COME from the Management Company; in my case, it was fortunate that they agreed to carry out this formal role. ICW were, on the whole, OK to deal with and the costs seemed reasonable compared to rough estimates given by other insurers. But (with ICW at least) it will only work if ALL flats agree to participate and agree to pay their share of the premium when it arrives. I think it's probably helpful to say the process comes in several stages. (1) Talking to ICW at the outset (2) getting the flats and the management company on board and liaising regularly with them (3) collecting plans and drawings and all other documents requested by ICW (4) hopefully then getting a quote for reinsurance (5) dividing up this cost on an equitable basis between the flats, with the funds being forwarded to the Management Co and then from them to ICW. The final stage (and I don't understand why this comes AFTER the funds have been provided) is that an inspection is carried out of the block - the communal areas and EVERY individual flat. If the inspection is successful, each flat will get an insurance certificate (covering 10 years from the original CRL/Alpha start date) and a certificate will also be issued for the communal areas. I hope this helps others in a similar position. 

Thank you for all the detail on this. Our management company have just paid ICW.
How quickly did a surveyor come out to the property?
How on earth was the entering of every single flat co-ordinated?

Our sale is hinging on this warranty so hoping to get a view of timeline from payment as ICW tell me "just 3 weeks or less". Thanks in advance!