House Insurance during building work

thingswerentthisbadinmyday

In final stages of negotiations with builder to commence work on a single storey extension at home.

Today, I spoke to our home insurers - very helpful - but not having undertaken any building work before, I guess I was bit surprised at the extent/scope of the restrictions/exclusions which will be placed on cover for the duration of the build.

A couple of questions, if anyone can help with first hand experience?

First, likely the builder is going to tell me that the existing patio door from the dining room (this is an external door to the garden) is going to be removed early on in the build, with the new windows/doors (and therefore the new security perimeter) not fully in place for several weeks. I anticipate being told that the ‘gap’ will be made good by (say) plywood sheets being nailed over the opening. Any thoughts/experience of this situation and what you can/can’t do about it?

Second, some of the insurance exclusions expected, but the endorsement that we won’t be covered for theft of contents during work is causing me considerable worry. I understand from our insurers that some home owners decide to take out specialist cover during building work but if we go tht route, we have to cancel the existing policy. Towergate was a name mentioned as a specialist insurer who can provide extended cover during building work.

I don’t want to over-react to a situation which is not exactly uncommon (i.e. building work), but I also don’t want to leave us exposed to unneccessary risks.

Any help/common sense advice as to what is the ‘norm’ in such situations would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

Slinky

IIRC our building insurer wouldn't cover us at all during our building work, so I had to take out a new policy. I spoke with a specialist broker I've used in the past as there's previously been a subsidence claim on our house many years ago, so our options were limited anyway.

We had a lot of our contents put into storage simply because of the amount of work we had done and it being impossible to do with all our stuff in the way. Valuables stayed with us in the safe, the big boring things were stored. The storage company had insurance included IIRCC.

We had a big lump of plywood filling a hole in our back wall for a while, and a pair of makeshift ply doors filling across the back of the garage which had had to be removed to get a digger through. It wasn't especially secure, but there wasn't a lot worth nicking in the house at this point, and we live in a low crime area. The biggest problem we had was they didn't fit well (at all in fact) and we had a rodent problem in the garage as a result.

MyRealNameToo

From an insurers perspective you are going to have a steady flow of strangers coming into your home any of which may have sticky fingers as well as the loss of security on the property.

What are your plans during the renovations? Living there still or moving out temporarily?

thingswerentthisbadinmyday

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81960626#Comment_81960626

We’ll be living at the house during the building work. I even plan for either my wife or I to be here 24/7, unless some unexpected emergency means we both have to go somewhere (fingers crossed that doesn’t happen).

Since posting the original question, we’ve had a catch up with the builder which proved very helpful.

Despite my earlier concerns about (early) removal of the existing patio door, the builder has assured me that the door won’t be removed until the last possible moment and -if all goes to plan - on the exact same day as the new windows/doors arrive on site and are fitted.

So, at worst, I’m hopeful that there will be no more than (say) 48 hours where external security is not what I’d like it to be.