Insuring a house near a small brook.

Statex2_2

We are house hunting and as we had all sorts of problems with one potential purchase. I always check to see if I can insure s property before we even view it now. I have found the ideal house but the insurance is so expensive. Axa refuse to insure it . I have checked with the Environment Agency and there are no records of any flooding in that area but the is a small brook 10 metres away. For instance a similar house not near a broom is £250 but the house near the brook varies between £1000 to 1700. How do people insure houses near any sort of water there must be millions of them in the UK.

user1977

Presumably they insure them by paying those premiums and getting the insurance? It's where you can't even get quotes that you need to worry.

MultiFuelBurner

Try multiple insurance providers?

Dustyevsky

Distance from the watercourse is less important than the height above it, and where flood water would go first, before putting the property in danger. If there is no history of flooding, it may just be a case of persevering to find an insurer willing to look at specifics and maybe paying a little more. My daughter had to shop around a lot to get a reasonable deal when insuring an underpinned house.

Who do the current owners insure with? That's usually a starting point.

hazyjo

Have you tried a comparison site? I had a house before that sounds extremely similar (London, E4) I can't remember who I used, but it wasn't extortionate. Will see if I can find a record of it. I remember my lender's insurers wouldn't insure it. It didn't put me off.

DullGreyGuy

Premiums will in part be driven by if the insurer subscribes to Flood Re or not, if they do then they have to pay a fixed fee per policy to Flood Re that has an elevated flood risk and so there is less scope for them to slash prices for strategic growth plans etc.

FreeBear

The alternative is to look for insurance that doesn't have cover for flood damage - Pretty sure there are policies available with that exclusion. You will probably need to go to a broker rather than use an online service.

user1977

FreeBear said:

The alternative is to look for insurance that doesn't have cover for flood damage - Pretty sure there are policies available with that exclusion.

Though if buying with a mortgage, I would guess any lender would expect the cover to include flooding (curiously the Lenders' Handbook just refers to "buildings insurance" and doesn't specify a standard set of risks).

TBagpuss

It's probably worth going via a broker. Years ago when I had issued s with my (then) house due to flooding from a poorly maintained drain (eventually managed to get council to sort it out, but we had 3 lots of flooding first!)  I went via Lark (who I think are now https://www.astonlark.com/ 
They were able to look at the specifics about find a suitable policy, IIRC I had an excess of £1,000 for flooding but £200 for anything else, ad then when I was able to provide proof that the council had fixed the drain the excess for flooding went back down. The premiums weren't significantly higher than any other insurers  but it took someone who could get a human being being to look at it to find the appropriate policy. 
(In our case, there was a drainage ditch on a bit of wasteland which was behind and higher than our houses. The council owned the wasteland, and they had sold off part of it for new homes and failed to ensure that the drainage ditch could cope with all the run off, so whenever it rained heavily the ditch overflowed and came straight down the slope and into my house and 2 either side. It tool a while to sort out as the land wasn't registered an the council refused to accept they owned it to begin with) 

ProDave

I insured via a broker (Adrian Flux) and declared the stream that passes through my garden and they found someone for just over £250

propertyrental

Is AXA the only insurer you've approached? If so, why?
Use a comparison site and/or broker and I guarantee you'll get (much) cheaper premiums.

Of course, you still have to compare the cover being offered to ensure it meets your needs and does not exclude things you want included, but that's standard advice anyway.