Archive for the ‘unoccupied property insurance’ Category

Unoccupied commercial property insurance quotes – quick and cheap-ish…

Saturday, January 14th, 2012

Unoccupied commercial property insurance quotes are not cheap. There is no getting away from the fact that insurers penalise you in two ways when you are looking to get quotes. Over the years, all of the business insurance companies collate statistics. They also have the ability to share and use statistics from many other bodies, whether for the insurance industry, fire prevention or loss adjusting professions. Everyone you speak to in the insurance world will tell you that empty properties are more susceptible to losses than occupied properties. It is, statistically, the same story year in year out. I have been working in this industry for just over 25 years and every insurer I have ever worked with or for has adopted the same approach.

The first one is not to touch this type of business. The second one is to underwrite unoccupied business property insurance, but with caution. I can guarantee you that hen’s teeth would appear before you would find an insurer that offers a scheme to underwrite all types of unoccupied properties. Every single risk is to be considered on it’s merits. An unoccupied building in one street could be completely different to a very similar looking one in the next street.

When you want to get a quote, as with every type of business, you need to speak to an independent business insurance broker. They will then look around for you. Going back to the heading of this blog, you are never going to get a quote that is cheap. You can certainly get one that is very, very expensive. This is because the insurers are really saying that they do not want the risk.

To get a quote that is somewhere in he middle, nearer to the cheap, you need to speak to us. Unoccupied residential insurance quotes can be purchased for around 0.20% of the buildings sum insured, this can increase to 0.5 or 0.6% for some of the higher risk empty buildings quotes, such as pubs, hotels and other licensed trades.

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Unoccupied property insurance quotes

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

If you need an unoccupied property insurance quote, whether for residential, commercial or a mix of the two, then you need to go to a business insurance broker. It may seem strange as to why you would go to a business broker for an empty residential property owners insurance policy, but stick with us and we will explain why.

A fair proportion of  our business is property owners. We do not differentiate at all, the only thing we cannot do is a home that you occupy yourself, this is better suited to a domestic, or personal, insurer. Even the larger commercial and business insurance companies will split their companies into two, one for the business side and one for the domestic. There is a problem though in going to a domestic insurer for an empty house that you are looking to insure. Why? Because most of them will have restrictions about insuring a property that is empty for more than 30, 45 or 60 days. Instead of applying restrictions, the cover simply ceases.

The reason for sticking with us is, that a business insurance broker will be able to get an annual unoccupied quote for you. Businessinsure can even get wider cover to include storm, flood, theft and malicious damage. You will not get cover for glass, sanitaryware, loss of rent, accidental damage or burst pipes though.

So whether it is an empty house, factory, restaurant, shop or industrial unit, we can get a quote for you. We can usually turn quotes around within an hour or so. Therefore, even if your existing provider has hit you with a massive premium increase at the last minute, come to Businessinsure and we’ll see what we can do. We are not naive, or should we say daft, enough to say that we will beat any other quote. What we will do is our best, for you. You can then rest assured in the knowledge that at least you have found out what the ball park is, price and cover wise. You can then choose whether or not you want to move insurer.

Posted in business insurance, commercial insurance, unoccupied building insurance, unoccupied buildings insurance, unoccupied commercial building insurance, unoccupied property insurance | Comments Off

Unoccupied commercial buildings insurance – what premium is charged?

Monday, November 21st, 2011

When speaking to a commercial insurance company about their top ten risks that they do not like, I can guarantee that unoccupied properties, whether commercial or residential, will more than likely be in their top five. Having worked for various insurers over many, many years they all treat them (unoccupied properties) the same. They consider them to be a higher risk than tenanted properties and also offer restricted cover, because they suffer more losses and they also charge a higher rate for this lesser cover.

The way a commercial building premium is calculated can be a bit complex, because it is based on years and years of statistics. As underwriters though, we do not need to use this information. The insurers produce a “rate” which is a percentage amount (per mille is another story altogether) applied to the rebuilding sum insured for a building.

If you own a property that is let out, for example, as a low risk retail (ie sweet shop, newsagent, chemist etc), you would be looking at an average rate, in 2011, of 0.15 to 0.20% depending on where the building is and the cover you get. If the tenant left and you need to cover this as an unoccupied building insurance, the main stream companies (the big brand insurers we have all heard about) will either not provide cover or will charge rates up to 0.75% and restrict the cover. Normal cover includes fire, storm, flood, accidental damage, galss and property owners liability, to name but a few. Unoccupied cover is restricted to what we summarise as FLEA cover. Fire, lightning, earthquake and aircraft (plus property owners liability). Whilst this gives you the main cover (fire) it does not provide any cover, say for storm.

We have access to insurers that, whilst they are not looking to be market leaders, are keen to insure unoccupied buildings at rates nearer to 0.275 to 0.30% with wider cover than FLEA. It of course depends on a number of other factors and you are better to speak to us over the phone to discuss your individual requirements.

Posted in business insurance, unoccupied building insurance, unoccupied buildings insurance, unoccupied commercial building insurance, unoccupied property insurance | Comments Off

Unoccupied property insurance – check the warranties

Monday, July 25th, 2011

There are two types of unoccupied property insurance policy. Firstly, you can get a bespoke policy where you declare at the outset, or start, of the cover that the property is unoccupied, untenanted or vacant. The second option is where you have a standard policy, that covers a building being let or tenanted but, if the property becomes empty, usually for more than 30 days, then additional terms and conditions kick in.

On the first option, it is usually very clear what the terms, conditions, warranties and excesses are, or it should be. The normal option for getting this kind of cover is to go to a business insurance broker. They will look into providing you with a quote, based on the property being annually unoccupied.

At quote stage, under the rules and regulations laid down upon us, we need to explain to you the details of the what is, and what is not covered. Usually, for an annual unoccupied property, you will have to do certain things for the cover to operate. One of the things will be a warranty relating to security, water and inspections. You will normally need to drain the water tanks, or turn off the water if there is no water tank, ensure the property is secured, including closing letterboxes (to prevent arsonists setting fire to materials and then stuffing in the letterbox) and lastly you will need to regularly inspect the property.

These are standard across the market.

The ones you need to watch out for are the standard commercial property owners insurance policies as many of these have their unoccupancy warranties buried deep in the policy wording. It is only if the property becomes empty and you have a loss do you realise that you are not covered.

If you have a let property and for whatever reason it is going to be empty for an extended period, speak to your broker and ask them how this affects your insurance cover.

Posted in business insurance, business insurance broker, commercial building insurance, unoccupied property insurance | Comments Off

Unoccupied pub insurance

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Everyone loves a bargain. It is a big difference though between saving a few pounds on something in the high street compared to taking a financial gamble in the fickle UK property market.

As a major business insurance broker, dealing with thousands of customers on an annual basis, we see which parts of the UK economy have suffered more than most. Nearly every quarter of industry has suffered, even now, in 2011, I am struggling to think of one industry that did well out of the recession. But, the leisure and building industries seem to have been hardest hit. The number of empty pubs, restaurants and takeaways throughout the land are still increasing.

The bargains we talk about are people that look to buy up empty properties and get planning permission to convert to other use, normally residential. If you are buying a pub, you are probably getting some sort of funding and will have a need for unoccupied building insurance.

Unoccupied pubs are an extremely difficult type of business to place. We have an ever decreasing number of markets available to us and can only get quotes if you comply or meet the following demands.

1) The pub needs to have been empty for less than three years.

2) You need to have definite plans in place for the future use of the building.

3) If you are looking to convert to residential use, you need to have planning permission in place and the work has to start within 60 days.

Any other type of unoccupied property is pretty easy to get a quote for, it is just that pubs are the ones that suffer the most losses. The best thing to do is to give us a call to discuss what you need and we can tell you there and then whether we can help you or not.

Posted in business insurance, unoccupied building insurance, unoccupied buildings insurance, unoccupied commercial building insurance, unoccupied property insurance, unoccupied pub insurance | Comments Off

Unoccupied property insurance – cover available

Friday, May 20th, 2011

As far as commercial properties are concerned, if you are looking for cover when they are empty you tend to find insurers are very selective in the cover they offer.

If you approach any commercial insurance company, with a property that is let and is claims free, you will be able to get the full list of covers. This will include fire, lightning, earthquake, aircraft, explosion, impact, theft, flood, burst pipes, malicious damage, accidental damage and cover for windows and sanitary ware. In addition to these covers you can also get subsidence, heave, landslip, property owners liability, loss of rental income and legal expenses.

If you then tell them that you are looking for unoccupied property insurance, following the sharp intake of breath, they will, if they are prepared to offer a quote, give one that is very restricted in the cover they offer. Instead of the whole range of perils, or events, they will usually only provide cover for fire, lightning, explosion and aircraft. This is commonly referred to as FLEA cover. The only other cover you will normally get is property owners liability.

Whys is this the case? Insurers base their pricing, cover, terms, excesses and warranties on their past experience. Whether or not you think that the risks presented by your building are low, the insurers do not always agree. They perceive all risks as having the potential of a loss, otherwise why would you be looking to insure?

Empty buildings tend to attract thieves, vandals and arsonists. In addition they tend to suffer increased losses from the weather. Some insurers are happier to offer wider cover than the restricted FLEA. What you need to do is to get an independent business insurance broker to look around all of the available insurers for you.

If you are told that you can only get the restricted cover, this is more than likely to be wrong. The right broker going to the right insurers will get you the cover you want.

Posted in business insurance broker, unoccupied property insurance | Comments Off