Insurance nightmare

[browning12]

We are having a nightmare in getting insurance on our self catering property. We have had insurance without any problems for the last 4 years. All of the sudden there is an unoccupancy warranty, where we have to have a certain temperature set in the cottage between October and March. The problem with this is that we do not have a central heating system. We have storage heaters and also a convector heater in the bedroom but there is no thermostat. The storage heaters can be on all the time, but most insurers won't touch us as they don't feel that it is good enough. We are aware of all the winter related claims due to burst pipes, but we haven't claimed and all of the sudden we are almost uninsurable. We have had one quote which is over £100 more than the last one and that was only after we had bartered with the broker. Prior to that the premium was almost £200 more than previous years. Has anyone else got similar problems or any ideas of who we can try? We have already tried Schofields/Holiday Cottage Insurance/J L Morris (who will give us a quote)/Cottagesure.co.uk/Boshers/Intasure.

[Andrew Clay]

If the cottage is going to be empty, you can drain down the system professionally and turn off the water. Most insurers have this as an option on their policies and it may be cheaper than leaving the heating on.
Alternatively, turn off the water at the mains and turn on all the taps to drain off most of the water and leave some heaters on. You won't be insured for the burst pipes - but if you're sure that the pipes won't burst and if they do there won't be much damage anyway, that's a risk you might be willing to take.

[browning12]

Like most people in the self catering industry our cottage is open 12 months of the year. Therefore, you never know when you are going to get a booking. We have found this year, in particular, that many people are booking last minute. So you might get someone who wants to come the next day or the following weekend. It wouldn't be practical for us to drain anything as the cottage always has to be ready for people to immediately arrive. It just seems to me that the insurance industry, who may understand their industry but certainly don't understand the tourism industry, are making it almost impossible to properly insure your property particularly if you haven't got central heating. We can't be the only people who don't have central heating - the system was already like it when we bought the property so we had no influence on the decision. Ironically I do actually work in the insurance industry as well as running a self catering cottage so can see both sides of the argument but it still seems that insurers are being draconian. We haven't even had a claim. It would almost be slightly more understandable if we had made a sizeable claim for this but we haven't but we are still being penalised and by rather a lot of money.

[Andrew Clay]

My AXA insurance policy just says that the heating system has to be left in operation and does not state any temperature that has to be maintained; and I think this only applies if it is unoccupied for more than 60 days.
It is a commercial insurance rather than a general household insurance.

[Windy]

Try Pavey Group? They came to our rescue when the usual suspects like Schofields and Intasure decided to play silly beggars with us.

Sometimes I think they do this because they are trying to balance their risk portfolios. Other times I think the are just plain daft.

Too many properties in one area or of one type? Hit a few with some silly conditions...