Home Insurance - 2 flats under one freehold

london_79

Hi all,
Hoping someone can give some guidance or advise.

I own the ground floor flat of a converted house.

There is another flat up stairs under its own leasehold owed by someone else.

I also own freehold for whole property.

I find it very hard to get buildings insurance (my responsibilty as freeholder).
When I approach a typical insurance provider via a price comparison site, they tell me I must have comercial property insurance due to the property being multiple flats.

As a result cost is usually 4 or 5 times the cost I'd expect to see on price comparison sites.

We live in London, most properties are converted into flats. 
Any suggestions of a good competitive insurance provider?

Thanks Tony

Hoenir

Speak to an insurance broker. 

DullGreyGuy

london_79 said:

Hi all,
Hoping someone can give some guidance or advise.

I own the ground floor flat of a converted house.

There is another flat up stairs under its own leasehold owed by someone else.

I also own freehold for whole property.

I find it very hard to get buildings insurance (my responsibilty as freeholder).
When I approach a typical insurance provider via a price comparison site, they tell me I must have comercial property insurance due to the property being multiple flats.

As a result cost is usually 4 or 5 times the cost I'd expect to see on price comparison sites.

We live in London, most properties are converted into flats. 
Any suggestions of a good competitive insurance provider?

Home insurance is there to cover a single dwelling but your building contains 2 dwellings and so Home isnt the appropriate product. 

Typically you would be looking at Block (of flats) Insurance which is a form of commercial property insurance. There are some schemes out there designed for very small blocks such as converted houses which may offer better value than regular block insurance. 

There has been some people claiming to have gotten Home and Landlord (technically another form of commercial property but really sits in a bit of a grey area) insurers to cover it but none have ever come back to state how they got on with a claim. In principle as long as you've clearly described it over the phone to the insurer or broker they should honour the claim but it may be a fight to get them to do so.