Self build insurance over £1 million

[PSC88]

Hi

 

Im looking for recommendations for my self build insurance my surveyor and mortgage company require cover for rebuild cost for £1.8 million

 

Most insurers online quote a max £1 mill rebuild cost

 

protek are quoting me just under £4k for 12 months this seems steep

 

any other recommendations or brokers?

 

[Russell griffiths]

How long will you need it ?

insuring 1.8 for a premium of £4000 is not a bad rate, it’s a fairly high risk area. 
does that cover public liability and other stuff. 
if your going to be finished in a year or two that’s a small percentage of build cost. 
mine was only £1200 a year but i renewed it 4 times. 

[Conor]

That's a good price. 0.002% of your build cost....

[Gus Potter]

Ah.. First thing I think is that are you building a small house on a very valuable plot? 

 

If you are putting a 1.8m value house on a £250k plot then the warranty is far too cheep. 

 

I do claims work from time to time against the warranty providers. There are new comers to the market and you really nead to read carefully their T & C's. It bad enough for me going up against the NHBC as their T &C  are not the same as they used to be. My last experience with Protek was.. the computer says know.. they are relatively small compared with the huge contingency ( all be it ring fenced) that the NHBC hold.

 

One of their surveyors came to my office and I found him very competant, had a huge depth of knowledge about the building industry but a good bit of the liability rested with him, not Protek Unfortunatly the Protek management came over as a bit twatish..and a bit financially niaive about the self building industry. I think the main guy was about 40 years old.. still clearly in primary school.  but with a bit of tough love they seemed to wake up and smell the coffee and we agreed a sensible premium that balanced their risk against mine. 

 

For the keen, folk that are familiar with how policies are written.. many waranty providers are shedding risk to independant surveyors and SE's to keep the cost down.. the banks are just burying their heads in the sand lending wise. I recently (not be named) one waranty provider wanted me to take on the contaminated land risk.. for £100 quid.. they are either out of their mind, or low IQ or just chancers! It's business so the latter is most likely. In this insurance business there are no friends in the desert! I know and make claims agianst them.. on the wanker ratio they are often above 5. Some are actually competent individuals.. but why do they take the mickeal out of ordinary home owners that say just work for the NHS... like my wife? 

 

You must understand how limited the cover is you are going to get for 4.0k. 

Edited Saturday at 00:01 by Gus Potter

[Owain1602]

We had/have the same situation. Anything over £1M goes down a different pathway in these companies, and gets a more bespoke assessment. I found that the costs go up disproportionately for anything over £1M. Went with Protek in the end, after looking at others. 

 

@Gus Potter You seem to be discussing warranty, whereas the question is related to insurance. 

[Gus Potter]

On 11/04/2026 at 11:00, Owain1602 said:

You seem to be discussing warranty, whereas the question is related to insurance. 

Warranty providers are insurance companies.. who just happen to underwrite self builds. 

 

Many just sub contract out all the inspections, plans and SE checks! That is backed up with a nice bit of marketing, sales staff etc which is what you see. 

 

I do battle with warranty providers on claims stuff so get to see what is behind the curtain. There is no way you could know this unless you do a bit of this stuff as a day job. 

[Gus Potter]

On 09/04/2026 at 23:40, PSC88 said:

Im looking for recommendations for my self build insurance my surveyor and mortgage company require cover for rebuild cost for £1.8 million

For a bit of fun lets have a peak behind the curtain. Take your case at 1.8m and you are just seeking rebuild insurance.. just that.

 

How would you get to the stage when you need rebuild insurance alone? This would mean that every other policy has failed to offer cover (which is normally standard)  and Protek are offering this as independent cover as a one off and have nothing to do with the warranty. 

 

As I said in a previous post I have met with them and engaged. The problem they seem to have is that their computer says no and some of their coms systems are a bit shite,  this lets them down. It can be really frustrating for Clients and myself. It's not that they are offering a bad product or are infested with chancers. Once you get up the chain a bit I've found them very reasonable to deal with. 

 

It could be that you are splitting out the Protek offer and seeing 4.0k as an item. But that is not how business works.. their itemisation is likely based on them securing the warranty and turning stuff into a bundle packaged up. 

 

Go back and look at what information you have given them and have another go. There is probably a bit more to this? Do you have a back story you want to share? 

 

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Gus Potter