Difficulty finding home insurance for house over 100 years old

jayjay2010

Many of the insurance companies won't insure a house over 100 years. Does anyone have any experience with this issue and if so which insurance did you go with? The surveyor that carried out the structural survey on this house said it's in very good condition, well built and that he lives in a house over 200 years old and there is absolutely nothing wrong with older properties.

GGTrek

jayjay2010 wrote: »

Many of the insurance companies won't insure a house over 100 years. Does anyone have any experience with this issue and if so which insurance did you go with? The surveyor that carried out the structural survey on this house said it's in very good condition, well built and that he lives in a house over 200 years old and there is absolutely nothing wrong with older properties.

Please PM me. I can pass you the names of a few insurance brokers that will do it. Forget major high street insurers, they only want very low risk buildings.

recipesforme

PM Sent

heebusjeebus

GGTrek wrote: »

Please PM me. I can pass you the names of a few insurance brokers that will do it. Forget major high street insurers, they only want very low risk buildings.

Can you also PM me? Managed to get a quote from BoI insurance but I want to shop around.

GGTrek

I have received a lot of PMs on the question of insurance for Buildings with more than 100years (basically the vast majority of Central Dublin within the canals and even beyond). It is unbelievable in this day and age that there is no Irish central repository for landlords or property owner for insurance. The IPOA only provides one reference of the insurance company of its boss :angel:
Other website for Irish landlords is only providing pay for play
As usual the Irish landlord is left battling on his own. In any case last year I was really pi..ed off by the continous increases of my previous insurer and I spent a few weeks investigating who was providing insurance for old/protected buildings in Ireland and I found 7 brokers which all refer to 4 separate underwriters (all non-Irish clearly).
My problem is always time, but I have half an idea to build a site which would put the Irish landlord one and the IPOA one to shame, maintenance would be a serious time issue however.

TiNcAn

I have contacted a number of brokers now for old house and they all seem to go back to the same insurer Plum (Llyods underwriter) in the UK. Would anybody mind PMing me if they know of a broker who deals with a different insurer?

The fact that all major insurers appear to have coincidentally decided to make an arbitrary cut off at 100 years is surely evidence of collusion and lack of competition.

Do we have to wait for the EU to raid offices here like they did for motor insurance or is there a local regulator who should wake up?

Never Loved Hovis

If anyone is still around, I'd appreciate receiving some insurers' details for my house which dates from approx 1750. I'm with RSA via BOI and have today received my renewal which has climbed 10% for no reason since last year and is almost double the original premium from when we bought the house 4 years ago. It feels very much like 'bait and switch', especially if there are so few insurers who are able to go beyond 100 years.

Cows Go µ

My house is over 100 years and the only companies quoting for me were Allianz and Kidd. I went with Allianz as Kidd were asking for lots of stuff and I was in a rush at the time. I've only been with them for 2 years and so far the price hasn't changed

jlm29

Our almost 200 year old house is insured with fbd. I don't know if their willingness to insure it is associated with the fact that we have a lot of other business with them also.

Senature

Last year I couldn't get a quote directly either online or over the phone. I then contacted a broker who got me a very competitive policy within a day or two.

I have two issues getting insured, house is 100+ years old and close to a river although no history of flooding.

Sleepy

Ours is 100 years old and we had no problem getting Zurich to quote once we phoned them 3 years ago. They were hugely cheaper (a good few hundred a year IIRC) than the only other quote we got which was via one of the online brokers. Have stuck with them since.

rflynnr

And a belated addition to this thread. I just got a renewal quote via Chill for our Victorian Redbrick. They identified Plum Insurance as willing to take on a house aged more than 100 years but the quote was kind of eye-watering and nearly 50% higher than the previous year. I shopped around online but most of the online quote tools stopped me as soon as I entered the age of the house. One of those belonged to Zurich's website but I thought I'd give them a ring anyway. And, lo and behold, they were willing to give me a quote. Key issues appeared to be whether the roof had been redone (it was - about five years ago) and whether the electrics and plumbing were in good working order (they are: everything was ripped out when we moved in about 20 years back and reinstalled from scratch: literally no part of the house is as it was when we purchased it). To all intents and purposes then it is a new(ish) house. It's even structurally sound: we had an attic conversion in 2018 which required a ground up survey. So if your house meets those criteria, a quote will be forthcoming from Zurich.

Furthermore: a like-for-like quote from Zurich was less than half of what Chill quoted us.

DownByTheGarden

FBD will

CrazyEric

Just resurrecting this old thread. Does anyone know of a broker who insures older properties. Plumbing and electrics all upgraded but the roof is the original 150 year old slate roof not suddenly going to break down now.

L1011

Got a policy from First Ireland through RSA for ~190 year old house recently. I can't remember what the roof age rule was but mine was redone in the 00s.

I'd previously had cover from quotedevil but they were dearer this year.

Their quote engine won't offer it - for either of those firms. You need to phone them. I'd say the same applies to all brokers.

jhegarty

123.ie have a "built before 1850" option.

Billy Mays

Got mine (built in the 1880s) insured with Topinsure.ie

Was a little bit cheaper than First Ireland