Buildings insurance for two flats (in terraced house) with two owners

mvk0016

We have been struggling since we purchased our flat in London in 2011 to find cheap buildings insurance. The issue is that we are the 1st floor flat and there is also a ground floor flat (2 flats in total, one above the other) in the same terraced house (both flats own share of freehold), and apparently you can't just purchase normal buildings insurance for each flat, but it has to be done via something called "Block of Flats Insurance" (although we are not really a block of flats, just two).

We were told this by the previous owners, and we've been using a broker (Gallagher) most years to arrange this type of insurance (as you can't get it via a comparison site). It's been getting exponentially expensive (£1200 for this year, for a buidings total replacement value of £697,994), and we thought there must be some cheaper option, so wanted to check if anyone else is in this situtation in this forum and has found a cheaper solution.

PS. The two flats are not converted from one house, they were purpose-built in the early 1900s (for the Royal Navy widows apparently!)

Sam_666

What you need is freehold building insurance, but "business" class one, not usual residential insurance.
You can try Avia, as they sell them.

One way to reduce cost, is to cut unnecessary add-ons. Like terrorism clause, etc…
Look at last year insurance policy, there must be add-ons you can remove and save cost.
Surely, you did read what you actually paid for?

poseidon1

See recent thread below.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6683726/insuring-2-flats-without-breaking-the-bank

Residentsline block specialist maybe worth a quote as indicated in the above thread -

https://residentsline.co.uk/

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6684569/buildings-insurance-for-two-flats-in-terraced-house-with-two-owners

If the leases were changed so that it was the leaseholder that was responsible for buying the buildings insurance then you can just buy a policy each of regular home insurance but you should be aware of the risks in doing so… if there is ever anything wrong with your neighbours insurance your insurer may not be able to proceed with a claim because they require the neighbour to fix their unit first. Even if they have insurance in place and dont have issues there will certainly be delays as the two insurers argue over how claims should be split if something impacts the roof or foundations on which the pair of you are reliant on.

In Scotland there is virtually no leasehold or share of freehold type setups so this was the traditional way of doing things but the direction of travel feels like more are appointing factoring companies and like a freeholder they buy a Block policy

Shop around, there are brands setup for smaller blocks who may be able to give you a better price. Even just another broker may be better