Renovation Insurance

ishouldbeinlectures

My girlfriend is about to complete on a house and needs to sort her building insurance. She is not planning on living in the house until after it's renovated. Contractors haven't been arranged yet so the property will be empty but not being renovated for a few months. We know most regular providers won't cover the property when it's being renovated but should she be taking out a regular policy and then trying to get renovation insurance afterwards, or should we just go directly to a renovation insurance provider?

Mickey666

Most standard home insurance policies will not cover a property being empty for more than 30 days, so beware of that as well as the renovation issue.  I had scaffolding around parts of my house for about five years while renovating it.  All I did was inform my insurance company and I don’t recall there being a change to the premium.  They did call me every six months or so to check if the scaffolding was down yet, but I just said no and told them it should only be for another year . . . Well you know how these projects drag on  However, the house was occupied so perhaps that made a difference, I can’t know for sure.
In my experience of these sorts of things, it’s best to just tell a potential insurer exactly what you want - if their standard policy won’t cover your circumstances it’s quite likely they’ll have another one that will.

davidmcn

If she's buying with a mortgage, is the lender aware the place is going to be unoccupied for months?