If your property has been affected by Subsidence, landslip of land heave or your property is in an area that is prone to these types of risks, you will be aware of how difficult it can be to obtain insurance.
Standard insurers tend to either refuse cover or charge absurdly large premiums; and with limited knowledge of which underwriter to turn to whilst endlessly ringing around various insurers, can be both time consuming and discouraging for property owners with no previous experience.
Put simply, subsidence involves the downward shift of a building’s foundations in line with ground movement, which occurs as a result of changes in the moisture content of soil – the clay soil shrinks.
By contrast, ‘heave’ – upward ground movement and a corresponding movement in foundations – occurs when dry soil swells due to increased moisture or usually as a result of mature trees being removed.
Because of the high risk, having a home or let property with (or surrounding) subsidence issues falls outside the “norm” for general insurers, so in order to get insurance coverage with relevant perils, it requires what is called within the industry a “non-standard” insurance policy.
To achieve in obtaining a non-standard insurance policy at a competitive price and sufficient policy coverage, it really does require speaking to a specialist insurance broker with the experience in dealing with these cases who in turn have established relationships with various insurers who underwrite such non-standard property insurance policies.
At Goldcrest Insurance we have a dedicated team of non-standard property insurance specialists on hand who deal with subsidence inquiries for clients on a daily basis, from residential homes, let properties to as bespoke as commercial risks such as pubs and taverns we are more than capable of providing you with a stress free solution to your insurance woes.
From your initial call to the end process you will be provided with a dedicated file handler who will walk you through the process of obtaining the right cover for you and your property. The most common cause of subsidence is trees and 9 times out of 10 they get removed and then there is no risk of there ever being a problem again! Yet insurers still shy away. Insurance for a house with subsidence should not be all it’s made out to be, Yes it is not ideal, but if there has been a problem then usually the fix will be the end of it, and that is the way our underwriters view it. If you have an up to date structural engineers report then there is no reason at all why we cannot quote a competitive rate on a house that has suffered subsidence.
