Burglar alarm malfunction - just before holiday

MeeMawTucker

Our building and contents insurance requires a burglar alarm, with phone monitoring, as part of the policy conditions. The alarm has a malfunction (it’s due to BT digital upgrades); the alarm upgrade has not worked and the engineer has tried everything but cannot make it work. We’re going on holiday in two days time and it’s looking very unlikely they’re going to be able to sort it so there will be no functioning alarm.

What on EARTH do we do? Cancel the holiday?! It would be a disaster as it’s a joint trip with family so would affect another eight people. But there’s no way we could leave the house empty without valid insurance. Is it possible to buy additional insurance to cover this? Our normal insurance is astronomical due to the house being listed, quirky construction and in a flood zone - but I’d pay good money to buy myself out of this panic!

greyteam1959

Pay for a house sitter ??

HampshireH

Could you not get added extra cover for the period it's not working?

tacpot12

I would call your insurer and ask them nicely if the would drop the requirement for the duration of the holiday. They can only say "No". 

QrizB

greyteam1959 said:

Pay for a house sitter ??

That was going to be my suggestion.

It's the time of year when all the 16 and 18-year-olds find themselves at a loose end. Do you have friends or family with a suitable youngster rattling around the house who would be happy to house sit while you're away?

MeeMawTucker

Thank you for the suggestions - I was in a real panic and couldn’t think straight on what to do. 

I have been looking at short-term insurance to replace the ongoing cover for the ten days we are away, so that might work. I think going to the current insurer might trigger them cancelling the policy, which would be really bad for trying to get an annual replacement? It is a bit short-notice for house sitting but I am going to rack my brain and see what we could put in place. The teenagers will all have finished their exams at least: I will definitely ask around

It seems like there are some options anyway, which is hopeful!

Veteransaver

If you get burgled whilst away just tell the insurers it malfunctioned 😉. Isn't the insurance requirement to have a professionally maintained system? It is professionally maintained, it just isn't working at present!

flaneurs_lobster

Veteransaver said:

If you get burgled whilst away just tell the insurers it malfunctioned 😉. Isn't the insurance requirement to have a professionally maintained system? It is professionally maintained, it just isn't working at present!

Think you'll find that most policies insist that as well as having the thing maintained, you are obliged to have it working and switched on when house is unoccupied. 

Actually, we did exactly this when we moved to a new house. Alarm system was fitted but never worked, insurance application simply asked if an alarm was present. 

They changed the wording a couple of years later, doubt if the effect on premium was significant.

DullGreyGuy

MeeMawTucker said:

Our building and contents insurance requires a burglar alarm, with phone monitoring, as part of the policy conditions. The alarm has a malfunction (it’s due to BT digital upgrades); the alarm upgrade has not worked and the engineer has tried everything but cannot make it work. We’re going on holiday in two days time and it’s looking very unlikely they’re going to be able to sort it so there will be no functioning alarm.

What on EARTH do we do? Cancel the holiday?! It would be a disaster as it’s a joint trip with family so would affect another eight people. But there’s no way we could leave the house empty without valid insurance. Is it possible to buy additional insurance to cover this? Our normal insurance is astronomical due to the house being listed, quirky construction and in a flood zone - but I’d pay good money to buy myself out of this panic!

Why do you have those terms? Do you have a particularly large valuables collection or is it simply because you declared you had a working monitored alarm?

Speak to your insurers in the first instance. If its the later then you may be able to change your Alarm answer which then removes the requirement for the alarm. I know with a friend a while back they discovered by declaring the monitored alarm it had only removed £6 a year from the premiums so vastly less than what they were paying for the monitoring. By removing the declaration there was an alarm the premium went up fractionally but there was no longer a risk of a claim being declined because someone forgot to set the alarm or such.

user1977

MeeMawTucker said:

Our normal insurance is astronomical due to the house being listed, quirky construction and in a flood zone

Don't the comparison sites come up with any potential alternatives (without the alarm)? Flooding sounds the most problematic bit there, and obviously that's got nothing to do with the alarm.

Silvertabby

Our house came with an alarm.  But as we have always had cats, we have had to disable the internal motion sensors.  We explained to our insurers that we still used the front and back door sensors, but they said that as we didn't have a 'fully functioning alarm system' they would put us down as 'no alarm'.

There was very little difference to our premiums.