Listed Building Insurance = Con ?

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

ok well it's that time of year when the good old insurance renewal is due.
My C1750 grade II 2 up 2 down cottage has been quoted £546.00 for buildings and contents cover.

Still wincing from that I did a look up on GoCompare and even though I specified a grade II 2 up 2 down listed cottage circa 1750 the best quote came out at £150 approx... so the question is I suppose is can I get a better price for insurance and yes I know all about the rebuild using specialists and special materials (bricks and lime mortar whooo dead special) is it just a bit of the emperor's new clothes? Or really worthwhile.

I think £546.00 is extortion by any other name. Is it worth using a listed building specialist insurer or should I take my chances with the usual mob on the comparison sites ?

Paul.

 

[Hobden]

Who was quoting £546? And who £150? Was the cover (e.g. new-for-old on contents, or maximum rebuilding costs) comparable?

And as far as I can see the First Rule of Insurance is that you're covered, unless you make a claim ...

 

[Anonymous]

Well said... though on a more serious note, how the hell do you know what the rebuild cost of your house is going to be ?
It was "valued" recently at £380k but I know that's nothing to do with the rebuild cost. The house is approximately 980sq ft made of brick and tile and has wooden windows (with some resin holding the rotten bits together ).

Does it matter what I say the rebuild cost is ? i.e. is it a bracket so up to £250k up to £500k and so on ?

New for old contents ? not sure what that means if I don't have new for old and my telly breaks can I only claim for the cost of a second hand one ?

I suspect insurance is a dark mystical art purveyed by wizards of ill intentions.

Paul.

 

[Andys]

This is a good point, you'd need to pay a specialist surveyor to estimate your rebuild cost - For us, this would have cost as much as our annual premium, which is Quite A Lot.

instead we can guess it, or use the market value, both of which could be way out. The penalties for being wrong are either overpaid premiums or the possibility of having any payout reduced by the proportion by which we are underinsured.

And now I'm going for a lie down

 

[Flyfisher]

I wouldn't go quite as far as saying it's a con, but it's certainly a subject ripe for misunderstandings on both sides. I would say the only safe way to protect yourself against such misunderstandings (which of course only arise during the event of a claim!) is to ask lots of questions, tell the insurer exactly what you want and get them to confirm everything.

I wrote the following reply to a similar question recently in this thread: http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15833&hilit=insurance&start=15#p216725
I think it's still relevant.

Insurance can be a bit of a nightmare, and we haven't even got thatch! I've been insuring ours on the basis of 1.5x market value after the advice of our specialist surveyor 10 years ago. Apparently, the worst case is a partial loss, in which case it may have to be rebuilt like for like, especially as it's G2*. But if it was completely destroyed then there would be no point in building a replica as all the historical interest would have been lost. Our previous house (1950s, Hertfordshire) was insured for about 1/3rd market value.

My big concern has always been the risk of under insuring and then having any claim reduced accordingly, eg, insure for 50% of the value, make a £100k claim but the insurance co only payout £50k because you're under insured. This has always seemed very unfair to me and I had a lot of discussion with NFU about it before their head office confirmed that they would not do this and would always pay out up the the amount insured regardless of property value.

This, I think, makes it much easier to decide your own valuation. So, for example, you might choose to insure for, say, £400k knowing that even if you couldn't replace the property as it was then at least you'd be able to build something suitable to live in if the worst happened.

But it might be worth clarifying the exact position of your own insurer regarding being under-insured, preferably in writing!

Personally, I think it's a bit of a cheek for the insurance companies, who you'd expect to be the experts, to ask the property owner, who wouldn't normally be expected to have such knowledge, for a rebuild valuation. There is a rebuild cost calculator online somewhere but it doesn't work for period properties, only new or fairly recent ones. So the only way to get a truly independent rebuild value is to use a professional surveyor qualified in such things, which the insurance companies should not be able to (easily) dispute. This will, of course, cost money.

When I last changed to NFU last year I asked someone from their local office to some and visit, which they did, and we discussed all these and other concerns. The chap was very helpful and said all the right things (which, being cynical, I suppose he would) but he then followed everything up in writing. I think the visit and follow-up letters would also help me prove I had no withheld any material facts about the house because the agent had seen it first hand and agreed the proposed cover was very adequate. But of course I'll only know all that if I ever make a claim, which of course I'm hoping never to have to do.

One other point, by all means contact all the 'usual suspects' for house insurance and try the online comparison sites but don't hold your breath. I couldn't get any of them to even give me a quote, mainly because of the age of the house but one excused themselves because we had more than 4 bedrooms. So it does seem that they do specialise in different markets to some extent. I've been with NFU and Lark (via the LPOC, even though I'm not a member) and they certainly seem to understand old properties. I've also heard good things about Ecclesiastical and I'm sure there must be many others. But I share your pain - it's not exactly a breeze finding the right policy for a period property. Good luck!

 

[Hobden]

Does it matter what I say the rebuild cost is ? i.e. is it a bracket so up to £250k up to £500k and so on ?

Very much so! If you quote £400K then that'll be the most they pay out. And, as others have said, but it's worth repeating, if you're under-insured they may decide to pay out only pro-rata, or, according to somebody I know who had a disaster, they may refuse to pay out at all. Second Rule of Insurance - they're not in it for your benefit.

There are companies (e.g. John Lewis) who'll just cover you for (say) up to one million with no need to provide a valuation. This is convenient, if a little more expensive.

Didn't you get a rebuilding cost from your surveyor when you bought the place? Does your current insurance say what rebuilding cost you've insured for?

New for old contents ? not sure what that means if I don't have new for old and my telly breaks can I only claim for the cost of a second hand one ?

I guess ... they might give you £20, since what is a second hand telly worth!

 

[Hobden]

I've been with NFU and Lark (via the LPOC, even though I'm not a member) and they certainly seem to understand old properties.

But more expensive I guess? We did look at NFU but they were a couple of hundred pounds more expensive than even John Lewis, and they wanted a property valuation (which we have admittedly, though one feels one should bump it up a bit just in case!). On the other hand NFU do have real people in real offices, so maybe once we're settled in our new house we'll have a rethink. The real test is what's the service like when you've had a disaster, and that can only be ascertained by asking around (or monitoring forums like this!).

What were Lark like? More expensive than NFU? Local offices, or all done over the 'phone?

 

[Hobden]

instead we can guess it, or use the market value, both of which could be way out.

Definitely! A lovely Grade II house in the middle of tranquil countryside is going to "worth" more than the same house sitting next to the M1! But the cost of rebuilding wouldn't be any different.

 

[Flyfisher]

I've been with NFU and Lark (via the LPOC, even though I'm not a member) and they certainly seem to understand old properties.

But more expensive I guess? We did look at NFU but they were a couple of hundred pounds more expensive than even John Lewis, and they wanted a property valuation (which we have admittedly, though one feels one should bump it up a bit just in case!). On the other hand NFU do have real people in real offices, so maybe once we're settled in our new house we'll have a rethink. The real test is what's the service like when you've had a disaster, and that can only be ascertained by asking around (or monitoring forums like this!).

What were Lark like? More expensive than NFU? Local offices, or all done over the 'phone?

When we first moved about 10 years ago, NFU was the cheapest I could find. Many wouldn't even quote because of all the refurbishment and scaffolding. After a few years with no problems or claims they suddenly increased their renewal by around 40%, which is when I changed to Lark, again the cheapest I could find. Each year they asked if I still had scaffolding but otherwise I had no problems or claims. After a few years they suddenly increased their renewal (perhaps they'd got fed up with my scaffolding!) so I looked around again and this time NFU was the best I could find and considerably less than I was previously paying them or Lark for the same cover!. Both our cars are with NFU so perhaps that helps? Frankly, I'm beginning to think they use ERNIE to choose their premiums :wink:

Lark were fine until their large price rise, though I had no claims. I don't think they have local offices so everything was done over the phone, but all quite easy. NFU was even easier because, as I previously mentioned, they were happy to send someone out to visit from their office about 10 miles away. I didn't know John Lewis offered insurance for period properties - I might well ask them for a quote nearer my renewal time this year.

You're absolutely right, of course, that the real test of any insurance is the claims service. I had no claims with Lark so can't speak for them. I can, however, relate an experience with NFU. It was at our previous house and we were also with NFU. We had just changed to NFU and had discussed our needs in some detail and finally recommended a suitable looking 'package' of cover, mostly by phone but with email confirmations. One of our requirements was all-risks cover to include my wife's engagement ring. Later that year, the solitaire diamond fell out of the ring and was lost. Upset all round of course but at least we were insured so I called them and they immediately sent a claims form. After a few days they contacted me to say that the ring was not actually covered by our policy! However, the agent in the local office who we had dealt with, remembered we had specifically mentioned the ring and admitted that with all the various package permutations they had ended up recommending a policy that didn't actually include all-risks cover for 'valuable' items of jewellery and that that would have been an add-on for a small extra cost.

At this stage my head was racing with how I was going to cause the biggest stink possible when the agent explained that they were prepared to backdate the add-on jewellery cover if we were happy to pay the small extra premium of around £20 as I recall. So we paid for the add-on cover, they paid the claim in full and everything ended well and was, I think, a good example of how you only really find out how serious a company really is about customer service when something goes wrong! Make of all that what you will.

 

[Anonymous]

So I've cancelled my renewal with LPOC insurance, sorry guys I got the renewal quote wrong last years renewal was £547 this years despite no claims it had gone up to £563!! So as much as I love the thick paper and the folder and the endless booklets and the quality feel, I can't justify paying nearly £600 for a years worth of insurance.

I'm still really struggling to understand what the difference is. Perhaps when it comes to claiming against the policy it will matter but I never claimed for anything last year so I've not really seen any benefit of that. The best quote I've found so far (specifying a listed building with a build date of circa 1750, near tall trees too!) is as follows; House Market value £380k, 2 bedrooms, buildings insurance to the value of £600k with £60k contents legal cover, home emergency cover, accidental damage on buildings and contents cover, the good old rear wash wipe option of new for old, worldwide contents cover, uk call centres etc etc etc all in for £171.60 no someone please tell me why I should pay nearly £400 more ??? I don't get it, so I won't get it.

I drive a Lotus, I pay the cheapest insurance I can find for it, I don't see why buildings insurance should be any different.
Ok for a Listed building you need to make sure your repairs are done by specialists (yeah like the roof I just had relaid by err a roofer using some lime mortar and reclaimed tiles )

Then there's the total loss argument - If my house burns down to the ground I won't be compelled to rebuild it as it currently is (all bent and knackered) since none of the heritage will exist, therefore total loss buildings insurance is as I eluded to previously, a con and the best advice would seem to be you only need to cover the cheapest cost of a rebuild. I entered a rebuild cost of £330,000 as a real guestimate and the policy automatically set itself at £600k in essence I could simply rebuild the whole house with modern materials and no one could tell me to do anything different. If £600k isn't enough to rebuild a 2 up 2 down cottage that's been valued at £380k then something somewhere is completely askew !

Then we get to contents insurance, as I said to my wife... in the nearly 30 years that we've been paying a premium for contents insurance, how many times have we lost everything ? Answer = never. Yeah the old dropped the iron on the carpet a couple of times and perhaps the odd football through the TV but never a total loss and when we had all our laptops and ipads stolen when on holiday from our hire car they would only cover up to £500 anyway so again, you can take that with a pinch of salt...oh and I should mention that my current contents policy has an excess of £500 anyway so we really are going to struggle when the TV has "an accident"

I'm yet to be and unlikely to be persuaded at the moment that what insurers are calling "specialist listed building insurance" is anything other than an attempt to sell me the emperor's new clothes, I would urge anyone contemplating an insurance renewal to look at what they're actually getting for their premium, what is the cover providing you and can you get it cheaper. At the end of the day buildings insurance is there to cover things like roof's being blown off or burnt off and for structural issues like walls. If your house has been standing for over 300 years, the chances are it's going to stay standing, unless it's already falling down and in which case you're not likely to be covered since your policy will have any number of get out clauses.

Please let's not get misty eyed about this. It's bad enough damp proofers and others trying to con people out of thousands of pounds, I'm not convinced that insurers aren't attempting to do something similar with Listed building insurance.

Paul.

 

[DavidB]

Paul,

I did use those comparison sites and my insurance premium is double yours and my house sounds very similar. The only exception is I have a tiny little stream at the bottom of the garden.

I've made one claim - and that was in a different house and in about 1989.

The irony is my house would be cheap to rebuild - a bit of timber and some lime plaster.

I once said to an insurer - how much if I just insure the house and have no contents - it was the same price - they simply upped the building insurance!?! :?
I once said to another one that their rebuild costs (up to £500k) were approximately twice that which the surveyor estimated would be the total rebuild cost when I bought the house - they said it was a minimum amount they insured. :roll:

I think insurers are like travel companies - they use a yield management system - which I think means they simply increase the prices until people stop buying and then they reduce the price a bit to get people buying and then increase them again. This way they get the most revenue out of the market.

I think you just have to be ruthless and change supplier and try to get a better deal every year. Which is easy for me to say as I've been with Santander for at least 3 years! This year I will change

 

[paulc]

I would urge anyone contemplating an insurance renewal to look at what they're actually getting for their premium, what is the cover providing you and can you get it cheaper. At the end of the day buildings insurance is there to cover things like roof's being blown off or burnt off and for structural issues like walls.

Also look at the excess levels - In the last year, I have had two occasions that might have warranted a claim. A leaking CH pipe that has stained part of the hallway ceiling (caught it in time to limit the damage and fixed the leak myself). Then lost a few tiles thanks to Doris and thankfully we didn't have any rain for the next couple of days. Managed to find a roofer that was able to do the repair at very short notice and didn't charge the earth for it.

In both cases, repairs were a lot less than the excess leaving me wondering what exactly I'm paying for.... Certainly not going for their additional home emergency cover when I am more than capable of doing the majority of the repairs myself.

 

[Flyfisher]

So I've cancelled my renewal with LPOC insurance, sorry guys I got the renewal quote wrong last years renewal was £547 this years despite no claims it had gone up to £563!! So as much as I love the thick paper and the folder and the endless booklets and the quality feel, I can't justify paying nearly £600 for a years worth of insurance.

To be fair, that premium increase is only 2.9%, of which about half would be inflation, so it's not exactly a huge rise.

OTOH, if you can find similar cover for £172 then you're absolutely right to question things!

 

[steveb]

I wish you could get "catastrophe only" insurance. I have no intention of claiming on any insurance policy except as a last resort.

We're on a flood plain so flood cover is hard to get despite never having any claims nor the property being flooded, so I have no intention of claiming for a burst pipe, nor any normal theft (if someone could steal significantly more than the excess then they have been down to the level of removing furniture, utensils, or clothes ).

I would claim if the place burned down which I see as the biggest risk

 

[fernicarry]

On the subject of excesses, I have a higher excess on my buildings than on my contents. Which seems perfectly reasonable as I wouldn't expect to claim on the buildings portion unless we were surrounded by rubble so the excess would be a tiny fraction of the potential loss and we could consider ourselves jolly fortunate.

But we recently had an incident with the induction hob and turns out thats considered part of the building (because its attached to a cabinet not free-standing) which makes the excess about 3/4 of the price of a new one. It was even more confusing because 'ceramic-topped hobs' was listed under both contents and buildings and the person on the phone actually had to go away to clarify what the difference was.

Do your specialist building insurers have anything to say about partial rebuilds? Could you insist this was done using the same materials and workmanship as the original? That may not have the patina of the original, not yet anyway. Probably not I would suppose, at the very least building regs will force you to do it all with modern materials and techniques so goodbye solid stone walls, hello lightweight blockwork and cavity insulation.

 

[Flyfisher]

Do your specialist building insurers have anything to say about partial rebuilds? Could you insist this was done using the same materials and workmanship as the original? That may not have the patina of the original, not yet anyway. Probably not I would suppose, at the very least building regs will force you to do it all with modern materials and techniques so goodbye solid stone walls, hello lightweight blockwork and cavity insulation.

I don't know the answer but along the same lines, if the house was listed, could the CO insist on the rebuild being done using the same materials and workmanship as the original? This, I think, is why a partial loss would probably make for a more complex claim than a total loss.

I don't know for sure but I would guess that thatch would not meet building regulations for a new build (anyone know the actual answer?). I mention this because some years ago in a nearby village, a terrace of listed, thatched cottages was almost completely destroyed in a fire, but it was rebuilt such that (from the outside at least) it looks just as I remembered it before the fire, complete with new thatch. I appreciate that is just one anecdotal example and I don't know the full details, but it suggests that it might be possible to have a property rebuilt to the original standard, regardless of building regulations.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Sorry, forgot to say that the use of the word "Patina" in my posts is actually banned !
ahem.... "Patina is a process which relates to the application of color or pigment onto a work of cast metal sculpture. The patination process occurs at a cast metal foundry whereby pigment is applied to a metal sculpture to enhance the look of the metal. The term patina describes the application of color or a finish to a metal sculpture's surface. It is not like slapping some paint on an old fence, it is a skilled method of pigment application. Patination is applied to a surface, it is NOT a result of the aging process which occurs over time and it does not describe a state of condition on an antique either."

Just for the record.... ...

So I guess it really boils down to what you're expecting to get from the cover that you've got.
If I get buildings insurance on an all risks basis for a listed property (that I've specified in the policy) then the roof falls off or a wall collapses then I can claim against the policy based on the quotes that I get for the repairs which would be done using the bricks and the lime mortar (hardly difficult to come by (I keep digging them up in my garden!!) these days) by trades who can err brick lay. Maybe a cob cottage with a thatched roof is different I'll accept that but the more people who buy them the more specialist trades become available to repair them (good old supply and demand). But a brick and tile house is a brick and tile house and there are literally thousands of builders who know how to build them. If it falls down to a pile of rubble at least I'll have a chance to get the drainage sorted out and I might end up with a house that's not drafty and cold in the winter !!

The fact it has bendy beams, (particularly in the attic), rotten window frames and damp on walls due to the 85 tonnes (I'm estimating) of concrete that has increased the external floor height to about 2ft higher than all the floors, is down to the poor craftsmanship of the people who built it, the poor upkeep by the estate that owned it and the subsequent poor quality repairs they've allowed to happen, I know this because I've had to pay 10's of thousands of pounds to have it corrected, not a sign of the CO when all this was taking place and yet she turns up when I want to put some roof lights in the kitchen extension!!

I don't think we should get too misty eyed about paying through the nose for insurance and shame on the industry who allows it to happen and actively market it as something it's not. Insurance is just a bet on a race where you'll never back the winner!

Paul.

 

[a twig]

Patina is a process which relates to the application of color or pigment onto a work of cast metal sculpture. The patination process occurs at a cast metal foundry whereby pigment is applied to a metal sculpture to enhance the look of the metal. The term patina describes the application of color or a finish to a metal sculpture's surface. It is not like slapping some paint on an old fence, it is a skilled method of pigment application. Patination is applied to a surface, it is NOT a result of the aging process which occurs over time and it does not describe a state of condition on an antique either."

To slightly over pedant your pedant, I quote...

The earliest recorded use of the word patina can be found in Filippo Baldinucci’s Vocabolario Toscano dell’ Arte del Disegno published in Florence in 1681. Baldinucci defines patena as follows: “…a term used by painters, called by others a skin (pelle), namely that general, dark tone which time causes to appear on paintings, that can occasionally be flattering to them.” Patena is an old Italian word used to refer to a shiny dark varnish applied to shoes, and whose meaning was easily understood as a description of the darkened varnish on painting.

It was not until the mid-18th century that the word appears in a dictionary where it refers to green corrosion products found on bronze artifacts. Patine is defined in the French Encyclopedie of 1751 as follows: “There is no French word to express that beautiful and brilliant color of verdigris that copper does not always assume; the attractiveness of this color to the eye and the difficulty in describing it (because all coppers do not uniformly develop it) is highly valued by the Italians who call it patina...

In other words, I'm afraid you can't claim patina solely for the artists of metal, as it seems it wasn't their word in the first place. Rather it was that of cobblers, and the word was originally misappropriated in order to describe the effects of natural ageing on objects, long before it became associated with methods of artificial colouring.

I would get out more, but fear of losing my place in my Dictionary of Etymology prevents me...

 

[skier-hughes]

Personally, I think it's a bit of a cheek for the insurance companies, who you'd expect to be the experts, to ask the property owner, who wouldn't normally be expected to have such knowledge, for a rebuild valuation.

I'm not sure why you think Insurance companies would be experts on rebuild costs? That's what we have surveyors for isn't it?

Our surveyor, as you have said, talked about partial rebuild costs, if half the house was destroyed, we'd have to rebuild the other half as was, and this would be costly.
I remember a thread about rebuilding a wall, I think it was quite a long wall and the cost of rebuilding was about the same as the cost of the house, or something astronomical and thee was all sorts of problems with the insurers.

 

[Flyfisher]

Just a wild assumption on my part that an insurer dealing with such things on a daily basis might have slightly more idea than the average homeowner :wink:

As for 'the wall' thread, I recall that was pford75's post about a listed wall partially destroyed by a fallen tree and the eventual total cost (including removing the tree, clearing the site and rebuilding the flint wall) was £105k. :shock: