UKC

Just going through the annual joy of comparing insurance quotes.

Insurers on the furry animal comparison site are no longer providing quotes for properties within 400m of a watercourse. To save me having to phone individual insurers one by one and explain about contour lines and gravity, (there will be properties miles away that have never flooded before that will be underwater before a flood from that stream reaches my doorstep), can anyone recommend an insurance provider that's slightly less extortionate than the others?

In reply to Ridge:

I found direct line surprisingly helpful when insuring a subsidence affected house. Did call but handled well. Could have been lucky with rep, of course

In reply to MG:

I didn't find the f*ckers so helpful when it came to paying a legitimate claim, and when the renewal came a few days ago, I got the same cover for £300 less.

In reply to Ridge:

I live less than 100m from a river and have never had any trouble getting insurance. I normally use moneysupermarket as a comparison site.
As an aside, 400m seems like a ridiculous distance, there are probably more houses less than 400m from water than not.

In reply to Ridge:

LV are usually quite reasonable and certainly cover my parents who are within 200m of a large watercourse, but 150m above it as well

In reply to Ridge:

Culpeck insurance.
We are about 300m from the sea and the house was flooded in 1953 to about halfway up the lower sash. I was finding it very difficult to get cover that was reasonably priced. In the end we got combined buildings and contents for about £1000 for a year. There is a big excess on flood damage but the price is comparable with other insurers.

In reply to Ridge:
I had no problems getting multiple (and reasonable) quotes from confused, and iirc they ask if it's

In reply to Ridge:

Aargh phone playing up. Was trying to say that they ask if it's less than 200m, or between 200 and 400m, or further.

In reply to Ridge:

Have you checked the flood map ?

https://flood-map-for-planning.service.gov.uk/

Some family members live on the edge of a flood area and are insured with Churchill.

In reply to Ridge:

Give e sure a look.they have always been o.k with us.

In reply to IPPurewater:


Yep. We're outside of any flood risk zone.


Thanks, and thanks to everyone else.

In reply to Ridge:

Phone them up. I had house insurance refused for being near a river. I pointed out that it was also about 50m above the river so if I went under so did the whole of Sheffield.
Got a sensible quote then.

In reply to Ridge:


But in the same or similar enough postcode?

Probably done by postcode rather than by referring to maps.

In reply to Ridge:
Avivia insure my house fully comp' including flood risk, when the property is about 50m away from a river and around 10m above it. Even though on the 1:50K SEPA flood map the scale means you can't tell if the 1 in 200 year flood line is through the house or just in the garden (which is the reality the house is significantly higher). Only costs around £200 annually (concrete build so cheap replacement cost).

In reply to Ridge:

Flood Re is a government scheme that was launched last year to protect anyone at risk flooding and it means that insurance companies can't refuse insurance based on flood risk for any property built before 2009. This site lists participating insurers.

http://www.floodre.co.uk/homeowner/find-an-insurer/

In reply to Ridge:

We have a brook running UNDER the house. We have always told the insurance co about it but because we don't live in a flood risk area they aren't bothered. To be fair the fall is quite steep and for us to be flooded it would have to be a local catastrophe.

In reply to Ridge:

We have a stream at the end of our garden As do a lot of houses in the area) and had no problem getting insurance. Cant remember off hand who its with but will look if you want?

In reply to Rigid Raider:


Similar for me, I live on reclaimed land on the 3m contour,so am actually below sea level on high tides for about 25% of the year (sea level is the 1/2 tide mark), and have a watercourse 100m away. Insurance companies here don't care because we don't have big rivers to bring mega volumes of water into the area.

In reply to Ridge:

Thanks to all for the helpful replies. Sorted now, just looks like the Meerkat's website throws a wobbler at the mention of water.