Some good news among the grim is always good, and it seems we may be on the brink of making considerable savings with our buildings and contents insurance.
Last year we found it nigh on impossible to find someone to insure our eco house. Timber frame is the first issue, not clad in a traditional method or materials is pretty much a straight no-no, and even if you can get past that hurdle, the roof being partially flat and glad with a PVC membrane just about eliminates any remaining insurance company options.
I’m not sure how everyone else on the development has handled this, I’m sure if you just ticked boxes and didn’t ask too many difficult questions you may be able to be insured with “regular” insurers under regular insurance schemes, but I’m just not prepared to take that risk! Last year we went with the Halifax and I have to say the buildings insurance cost a small fortune.
This year, after phoning around several companies, it appears we will be moving on to Adrian Flux specialists household insurance. We’ve used Adrian Flux on and off for our car insurance for years, we first came across them when looking to insure a modified Mini many moons ago. Their insurance quote, with all things taken into account and fully covered, came back as less than half the cost of the same or equivalent cover from Halifax. Yep, you read that right, we’ve HALVED our insurance costs, saving hundreds of pounds a year in the process. Very, very pleased.
This is an important issue that we certainly didn’t consider until we were well into the process of buying a house on the Oxley Woods development. We should have known that, in general, insurers seem behind the curve so far as modern building methods and materials are concerned, but even a year on we’ve been surprised how difficult it has been to get good cover at a reasonable cost. Hopefully the big guns in the insurance world will soon catch up. There’s 145 houses planned on Oxley Woods, and who knows how popular many of the technologies used here will become, so there’s a growing, if niche market here for the taking.
Good to hear, when we moved in we went for the easy option and had a mortgage advise get the mortgage and insurance for us. which although nice and hassle free did mean we got tied into the best he could offer for 2 years, so as to cover his costs in royalties. So won’t be looking for insurance till December but sounds like you have done the hard work for me, I will of cause try the usual places, but having never heard of the company you have mentioned it will be worth giving them a call as well.
Ours was originally arranged via London and Country brokers with the Halifax, who were also one of only two companies who seemed to offer an appropriate mortgage! Fortunately not tied in to the insurance for any set length of time though.
There was another company who gave us a quote, I’ll try and find their details, but they were not much cheaper than Halifax in the end.