Home insurance and subsidence

Wobblyhouselondon

I’m not sure this is the right forum but anyway, this is about concerns about selling our house which has a history of subsidence (repairs were done and we have certificates of Adequacy). Recently we tried to find a different insurer because our specialist insurer has increased the price quite dramatically. ALL the other supposedly “specialist” insurers have refused us. Insurers now seem to be more strictly anti-subsidence than 10 years ago. They are not interested in Certificates of Adequacy. I am concerned that, were we to have another subsidence event (we’ve had 2 in 30 years due to broken drains), our insurer would remove the subsidence cover, and we would not be able to find another insurer to insure us for subsidence. They can also remove subsidence from your cover if they decide to apparently, without a claim being made. Then we wouldn’t be able to sell, which . Any advice welcome. Thank you.

Slinky

Have you just done searches through the standard comparison sites? It may be worth approaching an insurance broker. We found James and Lindsay in Colchester were able to get us cover at reasonable rates and just the standard £1K subsidence excess, although the issues on our house were over 25 years old when we bought it.

DullGreyGuy

Wobblyhouselondon said:

I’m not sure this is the right forum but anyway, this is about concerns about selling our house which has a history of subsidence (repairs were done and we have certificates of Adequacy). Recently we tried to find a different insurer because our specialist insurer has increased the price quite dramatically. ALL the other supposedly “specialist” insurers have refused us. Insurers now seem to be more strictly anti-subsidence than 10 years ago. They are not interested in Certificates of Adequacy. I am concerned that, were we to have another subsidence event (we’ve had 2 in 30 years due to broken drains), our insurer would remove the subsidence cover, and we would not be able to find another insurer to insure us for subsidence. They can also remove subsidence from your cover if they decide to apparently, without a claim being made. Then we wouldn’t be able to sell, which . Any advice welcome. Thank you.

There is multiple ABI agreements on subsidence but it revolves around you sticking with the insurer that handled the subsidence claim. Once you've moved from them its the Wild West, you can't move back to them and demand same treatment as if you'd never left. 

Not all insurers are members of the ABI however because most are the Financial Ombudsman has almost adopted them as the industry standard that all insurers are measured against when considering complaints irrespective of if the insurer in question is a member. 

Having already moved insurers that route is closed. The other aspect over the last 30 years is home insurance is massively cheaper than it was when you factor in both inflation and the sums insured. People no longer buy a policy from their local broker and stick with them for 40 years but they shop around and many people will switch from a household name to some offshore unheard of seller to save less than £5/year. The consequence? Cover quality goes down, processes get automated and costs get cut wherever possible. 

It's cheap to build a system that deals with 95% of people straight through without any human touching it. Its really expensive to build a system that does 95.1% of people on a straight through basis and its expensive to have teams of people sitting around manually reviewing documents like certificates of adequacy. Many decide mass market consumer insurance is a volume play and so dont target the remaining 5%

You're in the territory of good brokers, unfortunately there aren't many of them around either because they are all aiming at that remaining 5% and that group is made up of a wide range of challenges.It'll be a case of hitting the phones and asking any friends/family that are in a similar situation

Annemos

Have added to the other Post about the FOS cases. And they all seem to apply to people staying with the same Insurer after a claim. 

But I also wondered in your case.... is there an additional Flood or Surface Water Risk for your home? Could that be adding to the difficulty with those Insurers? 

https://www.gov.uk/check-long-term-flood-risk

mark_cycling00

I reckon all those "specialist subsidence" companies are useless and probably just out to get people in your position.

Try a small, local insurance broker. 
They'll be able to chat directly to the insurance companies, send on your documentation proofs etc. and get a proper price. The staff will be qualified and experienced.

I don't mean a big broker, they can just seem like call centres