House insurance up 2 days before moving out

masterK

I'm looking for some opinions, I'm sale agreed on my house and will be moving out on February 10th, however my house insurance needs to be renewed on February 8th. It looks like with admin/cancellation fees etc, it will cost be €100 to renew it then cancel it 2 days later.

I'm tempted to just not renew. I'm buying a new house and will have a new policy in place with a different institution for that. Can anybody see any reasons I should renew despite the obvious being that the house won't be insured for those 2 days. It will be practically empty furniture wise.

listermint

no, its 2 days.

irelandrover

Id reinsure it as you say the place will be mostly empty. That in my opinion would make it a bigger target for thieves and i have seen real damage done to houses that are empty.

Nidgeweasel

It's two days.

Denny_Crane

On the one hand it's only two days. On the other hand that'll mean feck all if on one of those days the house burns down.

You need to speak to your solicitor there may be implications of letting insurance lapse. The other thing is sales aren't closed until they're closed, anything could happen even on the day of your move.

Eric Cartman

masterK wrote: »

I'm looking for some opinions, I'm sale agreed on my house and will be moving out on February 10th, however my house insurance needs to be renewed on February 8th. It looks like with admin/cancellation fees etc, it will cost be €100 to renew it then cancel it 2 days later.

I'm tempted to just not renew. I'm buying a new house and will have a new policy in place with a different institution for that. Can anybody see any reasons I should renew despite the obvious being that the house won't be insured for those 2 days. It will be practically empty furniture wise.

if all of your valuable stuff is gone and its just clothes and trinkets left, i'd leave it. Move all your tv's and other expensive / stealable stuff first, then even if the worst happened, you're down a few outfits and some paintings / furniture.

Denny_Crane

OP you may want to clarify if this is also your buildings insurance.

68 lost souls

Don't most insurance policies have a 7 day cooling off period? Can you look at insurance with a third company and then cancel it under the cooling off period?

It's only 2 days, would want to be far longer for me to go to the hassle of renewing it.

Graham

Ask your new insurers would they cover your old house for the couple of days you'd otherwise be without cover.

If the new insurers say no, personally I'd swallow the €100 cost to continue the existing cover. It's a relatively small amount compared to the value of the asset and the fairly catastrophic consequences of something happening in those few days (however remote the chances).

Mrs OBumble

Eric Cartman wrote: »

if all of your valuable stuff is gone and its just clothes and trinkets left, i'd leave it. Move all your tv's and other expensive / stealable stuff first, then even if the worst happened, you're down a few outfits and some paintings / furniture.

Crazy advice: TVs etc are worth nothing compared to the value of the house.

Imagine how much trouble you'd be facing if on those two days there was an electrical fire, or the local scummers decided to stip the place. Frankly if youre worried about an extra hundred, then you certainly cannot afford to risk not having cover.

masterK

68 lost souls wrote: »

Don't most insurance policies have a 7 day cooling off period? Can you look at insurance with a third company and then cancel it under the cooling off period?

That's not a bad idea.

I might also see if the new insurance policy can cover the old house and switch to the new.

Btw, we'll still be in the house, all we'll have is a couple of beds and a few clothes

April 73

II your house burns down while you have no insurance you will have no house to sell but you will still owe the full mortgage. Crazy risk for the sake of a hundred quid.
Ring the insurer & explain & ask them to extend the cover for a couple of days.

Nidgeweasel

April 73 wrote: »

II your house burns down while you have no insurance you will have no house to sell but you will still owe the full mortgage. Crazy risk for the sake of a hundred quid.
Ring the insurer & explain & ask them to extend the cover for a couple of days.

It wont.

Hope this helps.

irelandrover

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

It wont.

Hope this helps.

It doesn't.

There is a chance that damage is done to the house. There is a chance that it burns down. The same chance that there is on any other day of the year when you do have insurance. Just talk to the insurance companies and see the cost of insurance for 2 days.

Atlantic Dawn

I'd get cover whether you get a full policy and cancel or do the cancelling in the cooling off period which is what I would recommend.

There's too many risks with a fire randomly starting, a careless neighhours house going on fire, an Opel Zafira parked near it etc etc.

Duvetdays

My family was selling a house recently that was a deceased family members. The policy was in the name of one of the children who was on the mortgage but who didn't live there. The policy was due to expire the week before closing and there was no issue with the insurance company extending it for the week. It worked out a lot cheaper then taking out a new policy and cancelling.

The chances of something happening are so small it's not even worth talking about imo. I am a gambling man in fairness so far from afraid of taking a chance but 2 days without insurance I wouldn't even consider paying 100 euro for it.

Of course investigate easy ways of doing it though like extending the current policy for a week or ask the new policy to cover you etc.

April 73

The cheapest option is going to be to ask for an extension of cover.

After that it comes down to the level of risk you're happy to take on if you decide to forego the insurance. Only the OP can decide that.

listermint

Kinda makes you wonder what people did before house insurance became main stream.

Did they lose their minds daily with worry? Or just get on with it in the risk versus reward category

JimsAlterEgo

OP, if you still have a mortgage on it, this is one of the conditions of it

cruizer101

listermint wrote: »

Kinda makes you wonder what people did before house insurance became main stream.

Did they lose their minds daily with worry? Or just get on with it in the risk versus reward category

Not sure when it became mainstream but I would say when it wasn't people wern't loaded with a mortgage which was multiples of their yearly income.

For 100 I'd get it, not worth the risk, see if you caa get cheaper option

Yourself isit

Doesn't the buyer have to insure the house when contacts are signed?

Graham

listermint wrote: »

Kinda makes you wonder what people did before house insurance became main stream.

They became homeless if anything happened to their house. Ahh for the good old days!

m'lady

Yourself isit wrote: »

Doesn't the buyer have to insure the house when contacts are signed?

I think you are right, as I know when we bought our house only 9/10 months ago the solicitor told us to have insurance in place before signing the contracts..

Zzippy

Yourself isit wrote: »

Doesn't the buyer have to insure the house when contacts are signed?

m'lady wrote: »

I think you are right, as I know when we bought our house only 9/10 months ago the solicitor told us to have insurance in place before signing the contracts..

The buyer only has to have insurance in place when they close the sale. In our case the insurance company commenced cover a few days before the closing date, in case we closed early, but that was 6 weeks post-signing of contracts. I very much doubt an insurer would pay out on an asset that the claimant did not own yet.

m'lady

Zzippy wrote: »

The buyer only has to have insurance in place when they close the sale. In our case the insurance company commenced cover a few days before the closing date, in case we closed early, but that was 6 weeks post-signing of contracts. I very much doubt an insurer would pay out on an asset that the claimant did not own yet.

Sorry yes you are right, it wasn't when we signed the contracts, it was when we got the keys and even then she didn't ask for proof, she just asked had we taken out the house insurance.

okiss

I would ring the insurance company and get the cover extended for the few days. If your house is empty anything could happen.

I know someone who inherited a house from their parents. Rather than insure the house for the cost of €300 or €400 they did not bother doing this. They had a bad house fire and had not got the cash to fix the house.
They are now paying out rent every month on an apartment.

masterK

To follow up, I rang the insurance company. They won't extend the cover but if I renew the will not only charge me an admin fee of €40 plus the cost of 2 days cover and will waive the set up fee.

I'm just going to go ahead a renew for the sake of forty odd euro, no doubt they will only accept the cancellation in writing.

Yourself isit

m'lady wrote: »

Sorry yes you are right, it wasn't when we signed the contracts, it was when we got the keys and even then she didn't ask for proof, she just asked had we taken out the house insurance.

That's odd. My bank insisted on having insurance set up on closing day. Both house/fire and life