House Extension/Renovation: Insurance?

iceman777

I am currently in the process of purchasing a 120m sq. semi-detached house. The house has not been lived in for the past year, and is virtually a shell.

I do not plan to live in it until it is renovated and an extension is added to the house.

In my opinion, it is unlivable currently, however upon purchase I plan to do the following:

• Extend the rear of the house by approximately 55m sq.
• Re-wire the entire house
• Re-plumb the house
• Dry-line
• Re-floor, tile, re-kitchen etc.

The issue lies with House insurance for 2 reasons:

1. It will be unoccupied for approximately 1 year (due to planning, building etc.)
2. Building ongoing to extend the house

I have rang brokers, and companies such as KBC, AXA etc. directly and they are passing me between each other.

They have explained that if it is occupied then I can receive insurance, but many companies do not insure while building work is ongoing.

Has anyone been in the same/similar situation? How have you received insurance, and from which company?

How can so many house be extended/renovated these days – I would have expected it to be easier than this to organise insurance.

Thanks for the help in advance.

Sausage dog

We were getting a mortgage & went through the bank for the insurance. But once the builder arrived on site his insurance took over. It'll revert to us & our insurance when the build has reached practical completion stage.

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My insurance states the building cant be unoccupied for more than 30 days so a trip down overnight a few times a month solves that problem for me.

irishbuzz

Builder's Insurance only covers so much. For our mortgage, we were required to have our own insurance in place also

For example:
https://aib.ie/our-products/insurance/home-insurance/smart-construct-home-insurance

iceman777

Thanks Everyone for your input.

To update you, AIB, the bank we are taking the mortgage with will cover the house, and have also updated me that they will then change the insurance to "Building under Construction" when the time comes to extend/renovate.

However, from reading the documentation, the house can not be unoccupied for over 45 days, but that is easy to rectify with a bed and a sleepover every 5 weeks - I do not want to take any chances on an investment of this scale.

In summary, I always shop around for prices for insurance, assurance, mortgage rates etc., and I was simply surprised that other Insurance companies do not cover this type of request.

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just as a side note on that I'm 120 mins away from my renovation to only spend a day once a month fills me with dread
every time I come round the corner I'm expecting the place to be ransacked.
in fact its a running joke I'm not buying my stuff cheap off adverts but I'm making sure my stuff isn't for sale!
just something to be mindeful about ive spent 20 years collecting tools to leave a site unoccupied for so long is asking for trouble.

Tefral

Powers insurance brokers in limerick quoted me for unoccupied renovation self build insurance last week. 560 for the year.

You don't have to stay over every 30 days either.