Home insurance while extension is being built

123extension123

Just found out my current provider won't cover during the building works, where is the best place to go to for home insurance while our single storey extension is being built?

NeverTooLate

I've just had this exact same problem, I found a local broker and they found me a good quote for 6 months insurance. None of the online sites that I tried came near - it's a lot more expensive than the existing insurance I had, but it covers everything and they were happy to put the building contractor's name on it too, which is what he had stipulated in his contract.

theonlywayisup

There are some nationals and many locals that will cover you.  We used Buildstore but I don't know if they still do it (was some years ago).  Have you tried one of the comparison sites?

123extension123

Thanks @NeverTooLate and @theonlywayisup.  My early observations are are that comparison sites, even if allowing for building work, bring up a load of exemptions at the end of the quote process, which seem to exempt you from building an extension (maybe I've just been unlucky!).  Local broker may be the way forward - naively wasn't expecting it to be tricky when so may have people have extensions!  I allowed plenty of time to sort it, but current provider have been really poor with communication which has now led to it being last minute - annoyingly!

Mutton_Geoff

I've used Jelf (now Marsh Commercial) and GSI to source policies for my projects. The small print of many normal house insurance policies exclude building work, it's just people choose to ignore it. If you are doing a major project, the policy may be limited to FLEA insurance (Fire, Lightning, Explosion, Earthquake & Aircraft). Be careful with contents cover when the structure of the house has been opened up and you no longer have 5 lever BSI locks on all downstairs entrances (ie a sheet of OSB blocking a hole in the wall doesn't count).

NeverTooLate

123extension123 said:

Thanks @NeverTooLate and @theonlywayisup.  My early observations are are that comparison sites, even if allowing for building work, bring up a load of exemptions at the end of the quote process, which seem to exempt you from building an extension (maybe I've just been unlucky!).  Local broker may be the way forward - naively wasn't expecting it to be tricky when so may have people have extensions!  I allowed plenty of time to sort it, but current provider have been really poor with communication which has now led to it being last minute - annoyingly!

Yes, I found that some of the quotes I got were quite reasonable until you looked at all the exclusions, then it wasn't really worth having. My policy is underwritten by Renovation Underwriting and it's pretty comprehensive, I think the contents was Axa but as most of our stuff is in storage there's not much to insure.