Self Build Insurance Renewal Options

[Triassic]

My Two year self Build Insurance runs out in November. I still have around twelve months work to do to get finished. What are my options when it comes time for renewal? I recall reading that getting a renewal / extension can be problematic ? Options?

[Thedreamer]

2 hours ago, Triassic said:

My Two year self Build Insurance runs out in November. I still have around twelve months work to do to get finished. What are my options when it comes time for renewal? I recall reading that getting a renewal / extension can be problematic ? Options?

 

Mines up in March, so interested in any comments as well. Although I would hope to be finished by then.

 

Just one further comment I would like to ask, is when you can move onto a standard residential policies, before the completion certificate?

Edited September 23, 2019 by Thedreamer

[CC45]

Mine is now on quarterly renewals - its been 4 years since we started.  Same annual price but just 4 times a year - a right pain more than anything.  3 years wasn't a prob so can't see you having too many issues.

[nod]

14 hours ago, Triassic said:

My Two year self Build Insurance runs out in November. I still have around twelve months work to do to get finished. What are my options when it comes time for renewal? I recall reading that getting a renewal / extension can be problematic ? Options?

We had the same dilemma 

Thought it would be tricky 

But turned out to be quite straight forward in the end  

Though they did ask loads more questions 

about furniture and things 

One example was if we moved our plasma tv in and it was damaged or stolen We wouldn’t be covered 

I didn’t like saying that we could barely afford a tv licence 

[newhome]

15 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

Just one further comment I would like to ask, is when you can move onto a standard residential policies, before the completion certificate?

 

Whenever I would say. Many people on here have moved in way ahead of any completion certificate being issued. You could ask for a temporary habitation certificate if you want to really make it official but that will no doubt trigger things such as council tax or whatever. You can use that certificate to trigger your VAT reclaim however if you want the money back before you completely finish. 

[Bitpipe]

2 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

Whenever I would say. Many people on here have moved in way ahead of any completion certificate being issued. You could ask for a temporary habitation certificate if you want to really make it official but that will no doubt trigger things such as council tax or whatever. You can use that certificate to trigger your VAT reclaim however if you want the money back before you completely finish. 

 

We did this and had over 18 months of residential insurance before the completion cert was issued (delays on external items).

 

Bit grey as to whether this was an issue - I scrutinised small print to see if a completion cert was required but never found anything - but then I suspect that only if a claim arose you would really find out.

 

 

[newhome]

18 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

Bit grey as to whether this was an issue - I scrutinised small print to see if a completion cert was required but never found anything - but then I suspect that only if a claim arose you would really find out.

 

We weren’t even living in ours when I got the insurance cover and there was still a significant amount to do internally even though the major ‘risky’ work was finished. I tried a few ‘normal’ insurance policies but was completely honest about the stage of the house and the lack of a completion certificate. All that I contacted said sorry they couldn’t help me so I decided a specialist policy was the only way forward. The last thing I wanted to do was obtain a policy and then find that as I hadn’t declared all of the circumstances that the insurance company refused to pay out on a technicality. Policies like those are worse than useless. 

[PeterW]

I’ve found GSE Southern to be really flexible and helpful for this non standard stuff. Best way is give them a call direct, don’t bother trying to do it on the website 

[mvincentd]

14 hours ago, PeterW said:

GSE Southern

Do you mean GSI ?

 

15 hours ago, newhome said:

I tried a few ‘normal’ insurance policies but was completely honest about the stage of the house and the lack of a completion certificate. All that I contacted said sorry they couldn’t help me so I decided a specialist policy was the only way forward.

Did you successfully get a specialist policy?.....via who?  Due to lack of completion cert' we have been refused contents insurance...i've tried loads of providers including 'specialists'.  I've tried 'asset insurance' to no avail too.

 

With Protek my build insurance has been extended multiple times without problem...the last time it actually expired for 2 weeks before i got around to renewing/extending it.  It also remains valid if i live in the build.

[PeterW]

9 hours ago, mvincentd said:

Do you mean GSI ?

 

Yep sorry - autocorrect !

[newhome]

20 hours ago, mvincentd said:

 

Did you successfully get a specialist policy?.....via who?  Due to lack of completion cert' we have been refused contents insurance...i've tried loads of providers including 'specialists'.  I've tried 'asset insurance' to no avail too.

 

With Protek my build insurance has been extended multiple times without problem...the last time it actually expired for 2 weeks before i got around to renewing/extending it.  It also remains valid if i live in the build.

 

I couldn’t extend my self build policy. I tried but they said no to the extension so I went through Quoterack and sourced a specialist policy via a broker. It was just a standard house and contents policy in effect but it stated that it was a new property under construction and that it was currently unoccupied. I wasn’t able to get accidental damage cover at that point. The cover was £438 which is more expensive than my current policy including accidental damage today but I was happy to secure cover and it was still cheaper than the self build insurance. 

 

I know a couple of people who have tried to get a quote via Quoterack recently but didn’t have any joy. 

[andy]

On 26/09/2019 at 09:02, PeterW said:

 

Yep sorry - autocorrect !

Going back a bit on this one but I'm trying to sort out "normal" insurance and GSI not interested in a house without the final completion certificate.

 

Struggling to find a normal insurer to cover this scenario...

[andy]

1 hour ago, andy said:

Going back a bit on this one but I'm trying to sort out "normal" insurance and GSI not interested in a house without the final completion certificate.

 

Struggling to find a normal insurer to cover this scenario...

Finally found someone - hurrah!

 

https://www.astonlark.com/

[mvincentd]

Brokers Adrian Flux found me some with Midas Crown.