Insurance for property with subsidence history is always going to be more complex but thankfully Emerald Life can help.
We can provide home insurance for properties with subsidence history for your home as well as unoccupied homes and landlord insurance for rented homes with subsidence history.
Finding insurance for property with subsidence history is incredibly frustrating as you have been through the process and expense of making sure the house has been repaired to a high standard. But the very mention of subsidence means insurers will want to know more about your situation.
Don’t be tempted to simply skip over the history of subsidence as your policy could be invalid if you ever have to make a claim. Subsidence claims – as you are no doubt already aware – are extremely expensive and so you need to make sure you have the cover that is appropriate for you.
Insurance For Property With Subsidence History
If you’re trying to insure a property with subsidence history then you will need to get in contact with us. You can still fill in a quote online so we have your details but you will probably then be prompted to call or email us.
Once we’ve received your details we will ask you to fill in a subsidence questionnaire. That allows us to get a better idea of the subsidence history of your property, how severe it was and what was done about it. We’ll then pass that information on to our underwriters to hopefully give you a personalised quote.
Underwriters have different appetites for risk and that can change frequently. For instance, an underwriter who is insuring lots of properties with subsidence history may want to reduce that number by turning away new applications until they have more lower risk policies – like standard home insurance – to balance out the higher risk. There will be some more specific questions and further documents may be required, for example, surveyors’ reports, damage reports and receipts for repairs, so it is good to keep all those or make sure that you have them from the seller if that is relevant.
Because of that it is worth shopping around different insurance brokers to get the best insurance for property with subsidence history.
Cost, Exclusions and Excesses
As part of that risk tolerance, the type of home insurance policy you get offered may also differ between insurers. Some may increase your premium significantly to account for the higher risk.
Others may exclude any issues arising from that particular subsidence issue, but still provide cover for future unrelated subsidence issues.
You should also pay attention to the excess on subsidence insurance. Most home insurance policies will have a higher excess for any subsidence issues – regardless of whether your property has a history of subsidence or not.
But if you do need insurance for property with subsidence history and you have received a tailored quote then your excess may be very different to what you expect. If the quote comes out too high then you may also be able to reduce that by offering to pay a higher excess.
Much of this is also affected by your own attitude to risk as its unlikely you will be able to judge how likely future subsidence issues are. A higher excess could save you a lot on insurance premiums in the long run but you’ll need to pay a much higher one-off sum if you do have to claim for subsidence.
