Insuring building work

[siggy_7]

We're about to take a structural wall out of our house. There was a two storey extension built to the rear of the house in the 1990's, and as opposed to taking the old wall out in the extended lounge on the ground floor the builders simply removed the patio window that was there at the time, so we have quite an intrusive wall in the middle of the lounge. We have had a structural engineer specify the steels, done building control notice etc. Got all the materials ready to start, planning to do the work ourselves. About a month before we planned to start, I spoke to our current insurers as it seems like a good idea to notify them of these things. Big mistake!

It takes them three weeks to get back to us to say they won't provide cover, and therefore they are cancelling the policy on 7 days notice. Having persuaded them that we haven't started work yet so don't cancel the policy, we've been shopping around to find what our options are. Not many, as it turns out. A broker couldn't find a single insurer who would cover us; a "Renovation" policy from Endsleigh it turns out provides no cover for actual building work going on, and we've pretty much drawn a blank elsewhere. So far the only policy we have found is through Self Build insurance, who want about £100 to cover the works (sounds fair enough) but another £300 on top to cover the existing building, over a 3 months period (!). Surely it can't be this hard?

If anyone has experience in this area, I'd really like to hear from you.

 

[paulrockliffe]

I presume that you're doing the work yourself? If you used a builder you'd rely on their insurance. Do you know any friendly builders who could 'employ' you to do this job, so that you could cover the work that way?

I've wondered this before, in relation to my own DIY projects; how much are you insured against your own ****-ups? I mostly wondered it just after I put a screw through a central heating pipe.

 

[siggy_7]

Yes doing the work ourselves. That's a great idea about getting a builder to employ me, unfortunately I don't know any! My concern is mostly that not having the benefit of being mortage free, in the very unlikely event that a big mishap occurs (I wouldn't be taking the work on myself if I thought it likely) I don't want to find myself uninsured with a big costly mistake to put right and a very grumpy mortgage company hounding me for not being covered.

 

[blackrodd]

If you're not a tradesman that's not too bad a premium, most of us carry £5 million public liability, and employers insurance etc, etc.
If you offset against what you are saving by DIY you should still be saving quite a lot.
Should anything go wrong you could face a big payout!
Regards Rodders

 

[Lons]

I seriously doubt any builder would be naive enough to "employ" you and allow use of his insurance. It's an expensive necessity for us and a claim if something went wrong would be detrimental to the business and even fraudulent with serious consequences if the insurance company found out.
As Rod said, probably not a bad quote and certainly worth consideration. Your own insurance company base their business on risk assessment and clearly they consider your project too big a risk to take - right or wrong.

Are you 100% competent enough to carry out the work? No offence intended and I assume you are as you've certainly gone down the sensible route of building control and structural calcs, but I've rectified many DIY projects some of which were very serious indeed.

cheers
Bob

 

[RogerBoyle]

Would it be worth your while to employ a builder to carry out all the structural elements leaving yourselves with the decoration side of things. It may work out cheaper for you and will give both you and any prospective buyers in future peace of mind that the works were carried out properly.

 

[RobinBHM]

It seems surprising your insurer wont cover you. They should be pleased you have informed them.

House extension insurance is easy to obtain so its hard to understand why you cant get cover. Possibly because insurers dont have a tick box for it.

http://www.confused.com/home-insurance/ ... -insurance

Your structural engineer will have insurance that underwrites his calculations and the work will be checked and signed off by a building inspector. This will give you some protection, provided of course the work you do is 100% compliant. Not that Im suggesting this is same as having insurance cover.

If you want do the work, takes lots of pictures, plan the work carefully -belts and braces on every detail. If the opening is wide you will prob need 2 steels bolted together which are heavy so a genie will be necessary, along with acrows and maybe strong boys. If you have a modern house with good foundations the risk will be very small.

 

[siggy_7]

Thanks for all the responses. Robin, I'll take a look at some house extension insurance policies and see if any fit the bill, good tip thanks. We already have the steels (two beams to be bolted together as you suggest), to be set on padstones either end. It's a 19th century cottage with solid brick walls (as in ~400mm thick solid) and no movement over the 2 centuries it's been here so I don't think the rest of the house is going anywhere. The wall is only supporting the first floor joists on one side, so rather than putting strongboys through the wall I'll just need to support the ceiling on one side of the room to provide temporary support via acrows and some thick timbers.

Roger - tried calling several builders, most didn't pick the phone up and didn't respond to e-mails or voice mail, the remainder weren't interested in such a small job. Came to the conclusion it was less hassle to do the work myself. Plus, it's much more fun doing jobs yourself - the satisfaction of seeing a job well done exactly how you wanted it to be, peace of mind, and learning a new skill along the way.

To those who have suggested that £400 isn't a bad price to pay for temporary insurance - perhaps in the scheme of things (size of payout if it all goes wrong) it's not, and I'm just too tight. But when the cost of a job is half materials and half temporary insurance, perhaps you can see why it's more than a little annoying?

 

[Lons]

Only you can decide if the risk is worth taking and now you've told your insurance company if anything else goes wrong they'll use the "wriggle factor" to try and blame your work and get out of liability.
Sounds like a pretty simple job and one I've done a number of times including several large openings into walls of a grade 2 listed stable conversion. Be aware though that just because the building has stood for a couple of hundred years that doesn't mean it won't move a little when you change the dynamics of loading on to founds which are very likely to be no more than blocks of sandstone laid on compacted earth. More common than you think!

Good luck with the project, I'm sure some of us would be interested in pics in due course.

Bob