Home insurance renewal cancelled due to planned building works

LittleBrownHouse

Fuming.... so my home insurance renewal is due and we also are planning to start loft conversion very soon. So foolish me, decided to do the right thing and rung up insurers. Previously insurers on chat said that building works alone would not increase premium, they would just put a note on account and when works finished, then, of course premium would change (due to more rooms).

Anyways - long story short, after they have heard we will start loft conversion, going to do it ourselves and don't know exact when its going to be finished - they cancelled renewal and told me to come back when it is finished.

Little did I know that it is literally impossible to get a new quote if you:
1) have ongoing building works (without insured contractor)
2) have renewal refused

There is literally no-one willing to insure.
So looks like all the people with ongoing building works simply do not say their insurers. Surely building works should be not so super specific thing in home insurance, but seems none of the insurers is willing to deal with them.
Yes..I could be quiet and not tell them - but in this case I would just pay them the premium, but IF SOMETHING happens, they would voild my insurance anyways, once find out I've got building works going on.

So vicious circle really - I cannot hide from insurers  the fact there are building works, but when disclosing the fact, I'm unable to insure. Even worse...cancelled renewal is putting you basically in the black list like forever. What on earth I'm supposed to do?

I will probably end up without insurance and will insure when building works complete. Because seems I cant insure in honest way anyways.
But refusal to renew will tag with me forever. 

Yes..they claim there are specialist insurances...like Homeprotect etc..but even they refuse to quote, when find out we doing renewal ourselves, without contractor, who has liability insurance.

dunstonh

Little did I know that it is literally impossible to get a new quote if you:
1) have ongoing building works (without insured contractor)
2) have renewal refused

Having the renewal refused is not a notifiable requirement.     If you have mistakenly told new insurers that you have had a cancellation then it would be much harder to buy from the mainstream.

A refusal to offer terms at renewal is not a cancellation.   

So looks like all the people with ongoing building works simply do not say their insurers. Surely building works should be not so super specific thing in home insurance, but seems none of the insurers is willing to deal with them.

Its more likely that the two things you are declaring along with not using a contractor that is insured are the reason for your problems.  Building works alone would reduce options from internet sites but brokers should be able to find something.

Even worse...cancelled renewal is putting you basically in the black list like forever. What on earth I'm supposed to do?

It's not a cancellation.  So, you don't need to declare it.

Sandtree

dunstonh said:

Little did I know that it is literally impossible to get a new quote if you:
1) have ongoing building works (without insured contractor)
2) have renewal refused

Having the renewal refused is not a notifiable requirement.     If you have mistakenly told new insurers that you have had a cancellation then it would be much harder to buy from the mainstream.

A refusal to offer terms at renewal is not a cancellation.   

Fully agree that a decline to renew is not the same as a cancellation and with the traditional question asked it doesn't need to be declared. A minority however do ask if you have ever been refused renewal terms in which case arguably the answer is yes. 

To the OP - are you builders by trade? A loft conversion generally isn't something done on a DIY basis. Generally Home insurers aren't comfortable insuring the property during structural work but are fine with DIY etc but clearly most cannot DIY an extension or putting in a RSJ etc. Not 100% sure if my question is about overstretching yourself if you aren't a builder or over sold the level of change to the insurer... putting a few board down but still using the ladder and not getting build regs sign off etc wouldn't invalidate insurance.

LittleBrownHouse

Thank you guys for clarifying it is not cancellation. I will keep an eye that I do not declare it as cancellation, however most sites now state: have you ad home insurance refused, cancelled, declined or void or had any conditions imposed,  so I still fall in the refused bracket.
I'm no builder myself , but my husband is painter-decorator and extremely handy with such work. He is confident he can undertake it - we also have engineers sketches and had a chat with building inspector, so it is good to go. At this point I feel in worst case we will go without insurance at all and will insure on the earliest opportunity once it is finished.

Sandtree

No you dont... if anyone that has had an insurer decline to quote had to answer yes then everyone who's ever used confused.com or such would have to say yes too as always at the bottom of the list are a few insurers/brokers who aren't interested in you because you dont meet their target demographic in terms of too expensive a home, too cheap a home, wrong part of the country, wrong construction etc. 

LittleBrownHouse

You are right with your example. But in this case  what does that mean have you ad home insurance refused? 
I have had auto renewal and issued quote, which, I believe, is not valid any more - they have refused to insure me. 

Some insurers have refusal to renew in drop down, when above question is answered as YES, so it seems I should still answer YES. Even I will say No, in case of claim this can come up and they will argue I have lied.