Does new conservatory affect insurance cover?

Helen_from_yorkshire

I am in the process of getting a conservatory added to the rear of our property and wondered if this will affect either our buildings or contents insurance cover?

telly-addict

Building a conservatory will increase the cost of rebuilding your house, so you will need to advise your insurers of the new total rebuilding cost. It's important to remember that this is a rebuilding cost, not a market valuation.

Insurers will generally increase the rebuilding cost on an annual basis in line with the Retail Price Index, but it doesn't hurt to check that you've got adequate cover every now and again. Insurers will often give you some basic formula to work out the rebuilding cost of your home, or you may information from a previous survey.

Similarly, if you will have more contents in your house (because it's a bigger house!), you may need need to increase your contents sum insured.

Often insurers will increase these sums insured until renewal without any increase in premium - but depends on the company.

It's important to have adequate cover in the event of a claim. Not only is it the maximum amount that you can claim in the vent of a catastrophic fire or similar, if you are underinsured and sustain a smaller loss it may effect your final claim settlement.

If unsure, your insurers should be able to give you some assistance.

payless

Yes increase building cover (say by cost of new conservatory, plus labour)
although yes again worthwhile reviewing cover if a while since had professional rebuild calculation

http://calculator.bcis.co.uk/ will assist in calculating, although obviously it can not be exact in all cases

This issue is one of the reasons soem insurers now offer unspecified (upto a fairly high amount) or even unlimited cover

maclean2

Hi - on a different tack if the conservatory has any external doors to the garden or side of the house make sure the standard of locks matches any stipulated security levels insisted on by the insurance company eg they may require 5 lever deadlocks on all external doors.