Reply to: Boring house-purchase buildings insurance question

[d000hg]

Until your house burns down.

Some insurers are worse than others in that respect.

Unfortunately you don't know how tulip or how good an insurer is until you have to claim. Which and a few others do rankings.

No my point was if you view the insurance simply as an additional mortgage fee rather than ever expecting to get anything back... statistically insurance costs more than paying for your own losses.

[scooterscot]

They don't give a tulip until you claim. Then they will send their loss adjuster out to see if you are a liar.

True. In the last 4-5 years I've made two claim. In one instance my Edinburgh place due to upstairs dishwasher leaking causing my ceiling to collapse. Luckily no guests were in.

Insurance. The one thing you never need until the day you do.

[SueEllen]

Yes they do.

Bottom line, if the price is to good to be true...

They don't give a tulip until you claim. Then they will send their loss adjuster out to see if you are a liar.

[SueEllen]

Building insurance is partly just to placate the mortgage lender. Since long-term, insurance costs more than paying for work yourself then one argument is that the cheapest, crappiest policy you can get is OK?

Until your house burns down.

Some insurers are worse than others in that respect.

Unfortunately you don't know how tulip or how good an insurer is until you have to claim. Which and a few others do rankings.

[d000hg]

Building insurance is partly just to placate the mortgage lender. Since long-term, insurance costs more than paying for work yourself then one argument is that the cheapest, crappiest policy you can get is OK?

[scooterscot]

Nope.

Yes they do.

Bottom line, if the price is to good to be true...

[SueEllen]

Will they send anyone?

Nope.

Generally if cancel but the policy has started they charge you for the time you were covered plus an admin fee.

In regards to M&S read their small print and see who is underwriting it then see if you can get a quote from them direct as it is often cheaper.

Edited to say: In the terms and conditions somewhere they should give you a sliding scale of the amount you get back if you cancel.

Oh and some other brands are in the DL stable so when their insurance goes up just get a quote through one of their brands

[d000hg]

Will they send anyone?

[scooterscot]

Ask the insurance company to visit to answer the questions themselves. Without that you're open season come a claim.

Seen it happen.

[d000hg]

We looked at DL and MoneySupermarket yesterday as we prepare to exchange.

• DL quoted us ~£500 or ~£750 for the 'plus' package.
• Quotes from MS ranged around the £220 mark.
• The quote from our mortgage advisor's company was £~750

Our current provider MoreThan was one of the cheapest and like DL appear to have big default values i.e. £1m build cover, £100k contents.

It looks like we'll exchange and then complete 12 days later. Given that all insurance comes with a 14 day cooling off period, can I take out a policy on exchange day and then as soon as we're moved in cancel it and get a new policy with the exact details of trees, locks, etc?
How does the 14 day rule work? If you cancel you get all the money back or 50/52 of it back? It sort of seems like one could get free insurance by cancelling and moving provider every 2 weeks until you ran out of providers. Not something I have any intention of doing but was just curious.

[northernladuk]

Yep I am going to play with DL later I agree I like it when the buildings cover is just set at < £2M or whatever no chance of being under insured

I just think last time I used it the quote was a lot higher.

Plus of far more importance to Swmbo
We now have a sizeable family of stuffed toys to look after which ultimately are the only direct result I have from several £1000s of insurance cover over the years

We have the 2012 £399 Meerkat the 2014 £245 Meerkat ...............

I am sure a packaged solution like this more expensive but for peace of mind it was champion. Free family holiday insurance for the year. Away from home + university cover, not having to list valuables and so on. Just right for me.

I got screwed using the compare sites. I had a policy that had phones away from home but the one offered by the comparison site didn't include it so not like for like at all. After getting all pissed off with that to save a few 10s of pounds the DL package is for me.

Each to their own and DYOR and all that.

[d000hg]

Refer to your survey for estimated rebuilding costs don't rely on the guesstimate online that's typically hopeless and include any outbuildings as well e.g. my Garage is about two times bigger than my first house so the online guesstimate for my total rebuilding cost are always way out.

Absolutely, this is one perk you get with the HomeBuyer product as well.

Although I have two rebuild costs. One from my survey, one from the mortgage-provider's valuation report. However, they did actually send a chap out to do the valuation so it's not a worthless drive-by.

The mortgage valuation had a rebuild estimate £100k more than the surveyor's... not sure if my mortgage lender insist on their value being used without trawling the small print, anyone?

[DallasDad]

Yep I am going to play with DL later I agree I like it when the buildings cover is just set at < £2M or whatever no chance of being under insured

I just think last time I used it the quote was a lot higher.

Plus of far more importance to Swmbo
We now have a sizeable family of stuffed toys to look after which ultimately are the only direct result I have from several £1000s of insurance cover over the years

We have the 2012 £399 Meerkat the 2014 £245 Meerkat ...............

[northernladuk]

My house insurance is up for renewal next month so I have just run the figures through it on the compare the monkfish site which oddly did not come close to my existing renewal price (that is a first)

The best way to approach this if you are unsure is simply play with the tool banging in what you know for certain and then adjusting for what you think i.e is the tree is it above 10M > no in the 1st run > yes in the 2nd - it takes seconds to do, same with the locks etc. If the difference is peanuts then take out the policy with the hogher risks included.

Think positive if the tree falls on the house but it is fitted with crap locks you will at least be able to get out faster

Refer to your survey for estimated rebuilding costs don't rely on the guesstimate online that's typically hopeless and include any outbuildings as well e.g. my Garage is about two times bigger than my first house so the online guesstimate for my total rebuilding cost are always way out.

And this is the benefit of the Direct Line product. It's got a max value rather than you having to bugger about put the numbers in. I got the + option for some reason which escapes me now but the max values covered were way above mine so didn't need to bugger about doing all this.

Just checked the their site and the + option is unlimited. Check the T&C's and quote for yourself mind.
https://www.directline.com/home-insu...ings-insurance

[DallasDad]

My house insurance is up for renewal next month so I have just run the figures through on the compare the monkfish site which oddly did not come close to my existing renewal price (that is a first)

The best way to approach this if you are unsure is simply play with the tool banging in what you know for certain and then adjusting for what you think i.e is the tree above 10M > no in the 1st run > yes in the 2nd - it takes seconds to do, same with the locks etc. If the difference is peanuts then take out the policy with the higher risks included.

Think positive if the tree falls on the house but it is fitted with crap locks you will at least be able to get out faster

Refer to your survey for estimated rebuilding costs don't rely on the guesstimate online that's typically hopeless and include any outbuildings as well e.g. my Garage is about two times bigger than my first house so the online guesstimate for my total rebuilding cost are always way out.

Oh and last time I took out a Mortgage which I must admit was quite a while ago I was not required to show proof of building cover iirc.