Re my deceased Dad's property Unoccupied property insurance

newhorizon1

Hi there. 
My deceased fathers house insurance runs out dec 31st 2020. The current  insurance provider will not insure my dad's empty property after that.

We are going to sell the house in the new year and we waiting on grant of probate which is due Jan 2020. My sister and I are executors.

Are there any insurance companies that will provide unoccupied building insurance?  This is the first time I have dealt with a deceased persons estate. My lovely father died in june and paid till  house insurance till the end of the year.  

The solicitors have their own insurances they use and quotes £370 for a year. We need to keep the central heating on daily at a low temperature or have the water drained out the property by a plumber. 

Can anyone recommend a comparison site or a insurers they have had good customer service and quotes. My sister's preference is to pay monthly by ourselves.  I will do a comparison and get together to discuss with my sister. 

Thank you 
Tracy

naedanger

newhorizon1 said:

Hi there. 
My deceased fathers house insurance runs out dec 31st 2020. The current  insurance provider will not insure my dad's empty property after that.

We are going to sell the house in the new year and we waiting on grant of probate which is due Jan 2020. My sister and I are executors.

Are there any insurance companies that will provide unoccupied building insurance?  This is the first time I have dealt with a deceased persons estate. My lovely father died in june and paid till  house insurance till the end of the year.  

The solicitors have their own insurances they use and quotes £370 for a year. We need to keep the central heating on daily at a low temperature or have the water drained out the property by a plumber. 

Can anyone recommend a comparison site or a insurers they have had good customer service and quotes. My sister's preference is to pay monthly by ourselves.  I will do a comparison and get together to discuss with my sister. 

Thank you 
Tracy

I have some experience.
You could try this website:
https://www.ukinsurancenet.com/
They were quite helpful when I was looking for cover. (However I actually went with another broker so I cannot say how good they are once the policy is in place. I wouldn't recommend the broker I did actually go with, so I haven't mentioned them.)

Note that unoccupied cover tends to be expensive - so £370 might be reasonable. Also cover can vary from essentially fire only, to most risks. (So if you go with the solicitor's policy check what risks are covered.) I think most insurers will require periodic inspections, heating maintained to a minimum temperature or all water drained etc.

One thing the ukinsurancenet.com broker offered was cover with a provider who would offer a pro-rata refund if the policy was cancelled early (which may be important to you if you will soon be selling the property.)

poppystar

£370 a year seems very cheap for unoccupied insurance based on my experience. As said above do check what it covers, same with the existing policy which, eventhough they are continuing it, may now not cover everything and also may have winter conditions and check requirements which you might already be expected to be doing.

I asked around on here and eventually used a more expensive company as they required less checks which put my mind at rest if I couldn’t do the journey each week. I found it difficult to decide from online quotes as the companies that came up were not names I recognised and I had a fear of choosing a bogus one. Good move to ask on here. I also bought the policy via a broker in the end, not something I have ever done with my own insurance, but they have more experience in this specialist field and of making claims with the various companies.

I hope I’m never in the position to find out if I made the correct choice!

maman

£370 seems good value compared to what a house will sell for and any potential remedial work should anything go wrong. You're right to shop around though. 

Frogletina

I've been paying £35 a month via UK insurance net, but I had to make an initial payment of £65 so £485 for  a full year. I had to change insurers after probate was granted, I was previously only paying £14.24 a month.

Uxb1

I did it via the broker A-plan.
As per the above comments £370 sound roughly in line with what I was paying from memory.
As well as heating on and on a frost protection setting another requirement was the loft hatch left open during winter (end Nov to end Mar)