Are we crazy? Trying to find a way of buying a house with potential subsidence

Miri_J

I used to work in this area, a long time ago, so things may have changed.  However,  the way it worked with the insurers I dealt with was that you could start a claim under the original owners and then sell the house with the new owners inheriting the policy.

They would usually get monitoring in place quite quickly (if required) and usually monitor for 12 months. Drainage issues would be investigated quickly and sorted within the first 3-4 months. I was working for some major insurance companies and we had some very strict deadlines to keep to.

 If you didn't claim, moved in and found the subsidence was worse than expected,  you would not be able to claim as it is obviously preexisting damage. The engineer assessing your claim would know!

Miri_J

ossteith said:

Miri_J said:

I used to work in this area, a long time ago, so things may have changed.  However,  the way it worked with the insurers I dealt with was that you could start a claim under the original owners and then sell the house with the new owners inheriting the policy.

They would usually get monitoring in place quite quickly (if required) and usually monitor for 12 months. Drainage issues would be investigated quickly and sorted within the first 3-4 months. I was working for some major insurance companies and we had some very strict deadlines to keep to.

 If you didn't claim, moved in and found the subsidence was worse than expected,  you would not be able to claim as it is obviously preexisting damage. The engineer assessing your claim would know!

Thanks Mini J, this is the option I wanted to explore. I assume we'd be bound to that insurer for some time (1-2 years, possibly more, depending on how long monitoring takes, if that's what they wanted to do). Is it likely premiums would go through the roof in that time, given you have no choice but to stick with them?

Sadly, I don't know the answer to that question.  I think it might depend on the insurer. If they want to keep your custom after the issue was fixed then one would think they would be reasonable,  but I didn't hear from anyone far enough down  the line to hear about this.