Empty Home Insurance

DizzyGiraffe

Hi

I need to insure an unoccupied house and have found a reasonable quote from “Arkel Adapt” via Money Supermarket website.  However I have been able to find anything much on them and wonder if anyone on here has heard of them or can recommend them.  Other quotes from different companies have been ludicrously expensive.  Additionally any other tips on finding reasonably priced empty house insurance would be appreciated.

p00hsticks

When I had to do this last year I found this company
https://www.homeprotect.co.uk/unoccupied-property-insurance

It seemed reasonably priced and you could pay monthly (although there was a cancellation fee). They're apparently underwritten by Axa.

I can't comment on what they would be like if you had to claim. as I never had to. 
Note that I think it;s only buildings insurance as there were minimal contents left, none of any value. 

DullGreyGuy

DizzyGiraffe said:

Hi

I need to insure an unoccupied house and have found a reasonable quote from “Arkel Adapt” via Money Supermarket website.  However I have been able to find anything much on them and wonder if anyone on here has heard of them or can recommend them.  Other quotes from different companies have been ludicrously expensive.  Additionally any other tips on finding reasonably priced empty house insurance would be appreciated.

Arkel Underwriting sell the product Adapt Home via intermediaries... they however are not the ultimate risk carriers but an MGA, a middleman company thats given the authority to write risks on behalf of one or more other insurers within certain bounds. 

Personally dont know anything about them but there are an ever increasing numbers of MGAs appearing because its relatively simple to create one -v- creating an actual insurer. Whats not clear is who does the claims handling... some MGAs have claims handling authority, up to a certain level, and others dont in which case it goes to the underlying insurer (or the lead insurer if its a consortium). MGAs often tend to focus on some form of niche be that lower demand products like unoccupied property insurance or some new distribution model or such.

Annemos

We just had to do this, too, for our Mum's place. My sister used A-Plan to get one set one up. 

01908 271771

We don't have any experience with the policy. But we were very grateful to find one. This one does include contents. It was under 400 pounds.

bryanevans

Be careful!

The Arkel policy for Adept Unoccupied Residential Property Insurance is probably okay. We took out a policy to insure a second home we inherited while we were selling it, but did not need to make any claim.

However, the intermediary used to buy the policy - CETA Insurance Ltd of Chipping Norton (01908 271771) - was absolutely awful!

Very lengthy call queues, often cut-off after loooong waits and poorly-trained and difficult-to-understand call centre staff (based in India?).

CETA then badly fleeced us with crippling admin charges -- a £100 renewal fee on the anniversary of the policy.  £20 fee to change our correspondence address, (charged twice in error).  £27.50 to update the direct debit mandate, a recurring "payment administration fee" for the monthly direct debit, and finally £45 to cancel the policy when we finally sold the house.

 

None of these hefty "admin charges" were disclosed before we bought the policy through CETA.  When we complained to CETA they told us that "our admin charges are all listed online".   Apparently they are in a separate "Terms of Business" document that CETA notably did not include in the policy pack and appears to have been deleted at some point.  We did find an old archived copy of their charges from 2022

[redacted]

Thankfully we never had to make a claim through CETA.