Insurance with subsidence

[Dave]

Hi,

We are in the process of purchasing a house that has been previously underpinned but the current owner has messed up by changing his insurers and forgetting to tell them about the underpinning. This obviously makes his insurance invalid and also means we will have to find our own! The trouble is that we really like the house.

I have looked at Bureau Insurance who will approach Lloyds underwriters for a fee (refundable if unsuccessful) and say they have a 98% success rate. I would however like to initially try and get something off the high street where the premiums aren't as high. If we were to get the seller to do a full structural survey, does anyone know of any insurers who would even consider looking at insuring the property?

Thanks very much

Dave

[Peter Crosland]

This is part of a conspiracy or cartel amongst insurers. What they have done is effectively to only insure houses that have had subsidence that occurred when they were the insurers. I live in a house that was underpinned 25 years ago at the cost of, and supervised by, my insurer. No subsidence has reoccurred and I had a full structural survey done before I bought it. Despite this no other company will cover it even if I ask for cover excluding subsidence. I wish you luck with the company mentioned and would be very interested to hear if you succeed. My gut feeling is to say look elsewhere because when you come to sell the problem will almost certainly put buyers off.

Peter Crosland

[Lobster]

This issue has been discussed here many times, most recently a couple of weeks ago - have a read, it should tell you all you need to know: (or

Is it

that you've been pointed at? They are the most likely place to offer it, but it'll almost certainly be very expensive.

I certainly wouldn't be asking the seller to get a structural survey done - if you're going to have one, you should commission it yourself, not have their 'tame' engineer do it, and then think about getting them to pay for it. But first consider carefully whether or not you should just be walking away now.

David