My current specialist household insurance runs out soon and I need a new policy.   The current insurance covers the old house, now being demolished, the cabin we are living in, two shipping containers full of furniture etc, a digger, contents of a garage and shed and a sit on mower etc.

 

Very soon we will start the new build, which will be done in work packages, with each package clearly defined, so that I can leave the various contractors to do their bit.

 

So what type of insurance do I need to cover the above?

So having spent the last couple of hours ringing around, it looks like we need two policies....

 

   1. a general household policy for our cabin, garage, storage containers, digger and other bits and bobs,

 

    2. a self build policy to commence when we actually start the build.

 

It will be interesting to see what prices I'm quoted when the broker gets back to me.

We are just one one self build policy that covers the static van we are living in.  If the time to starting build is not long why not just get a self build insurance a bit early?

3 hours ago, ProDave said:

We are just one one self build policy that covers the static van we are living in.  If the time to starting build is not long why not just get a self build insurance a bit early?

I was told that self build insurance only covers self build and not the self builder living on site.

3 minutes ago, Triassic said:

I was told that self build insurance only covers self build and not the self builder living on site.

 

 

Ours was the same, although this detail was buried in the small print. 

 

In the end I used a broker to put together a specialist policy that covered exactly what we needed for the second policy we took out, and that worked well.  They basically took a renovation policy as a basis, then changed a few clauses to suit an almost completed self-build, where there was no requirement for cover for site-specific risks, because the site was by then no more hazardous than a garden.

The broker has gone away to look for insurance policies to cover us. Out of interest and to give me a bench mark, how much can I expect to pay for a self build insurance policy and are all such policies to same in terms of what's covered?

 

One final thought, if living n site is not covered by the self Build policy, will a standard domestic policy be sufficient to cover everything else? 

 

 

Edited June 25, 20179 yr by Triassic

Sennoke cover vans on site from memory as part of their self build policy - may be worth checking with them ..?

 

They seem pretty switched on to the SB market and tailoring what is available. 

Rather than a caravan we built a small cabin, hence the suggestion that a domestic policy would cover us. Mind you, it's also got to cover our storage containers and the contents of a double garage. I assume my digger will be covered by the self Build policy?

Edited June 25, 20179 yr by Triassic

A related point, so I hope that you don't mind me adding it to this topic.

 

It's now free free two years since we broke ground, and we are in the tail of second fix, mainly because we are doing the work ourselves and we are stringing out the cash out until we sell our old house.  From a building control completion perspective, the main constraints are that we are waiting for our tiler to do the wetroom floors before we can finish the rest of the walls and decorate then fit the fittings.  So we might be in the position of going for completion certificate in 3 months -- just about the time that our current building insurance extension runs out.  The price for extensions is rediculous (captive market).

 

So to my Q: at what point can you switch from building insurance to normal house insurance?

So I've got my insurance sorted, the cabin and the storage containers etc are on a specialist domestic policy and I'll get a self build policy once I have a start date for the build.

 

Just  one thing to sort out now, insurance for my digger, they won't cover it as part of a specialist domestic policy. Any suggestions as to how to insure a digger worth £5k?

The self build policy will cover the digger.

12 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The self build policy will cover the digger.

Let's just hope it's not stolen between now and the start of the self Build !