Essential insurance a builder must have

Not until the room is complete, and available for use do the risks associated with its use affect the policy.
Rebuild cost will have changed as soon as work begins.
No use listening to a conversation on a forum, to get the correct advice Speak to the insurance company

No it won't.

It's an irrelevant point anyway as insurance is based on risk.
Check your policy and see what it says about building work.
 
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Check your policy and see what it says about building work.
I have checked what my policy says. Not a standard as they are aware I am doing a DIY renovation. But they did mention about employing contractors and ensuring they had insurance.
 
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in no particular order.
1/. I do not think the builder can be placed on your insurance, because he has no what is called "Insurable interest" in your property, meaning he does not own your home, in a domestic policy you have to own the property you are insuring, for example, I cannot insure your car because I do not have the requisite insurable interest, or, a tenant can insure his / her Contents but cannot hold insurance on the property, it could be granted but when a claim is intimated and it is found out that the tenant does not own the property the claim will be voided and the premiums returned, if fraud is suspected the police are informed and the premiums are retained by the insurer.

2/. As for informing the insurer of the work YES! as far as the insurer is concerned and has been posts above, your premiums are dependant on the area of the property, I work In the Insurance industry, and a lot of the Insurers I work for demand that I work out what is called a Re-Build Cost, dead simple, work out the area of the property and use the tables provided, date of Construction, type of property, Condition and size of the property to get the cost per M2, what happens is that in the above scenario a person purchases say an Ex-Council property, in Scotland for £ 50,000 so they insure it at that value, but that was ten to fifteen years ago, same property now is worth £ 190,000, if the property burns down the insurer will only be obliged to pay out the £ 50,000 not the true-build cost, or if someone puts in a £ 50,000 Kitchen, I inspected one last Friday! but does not inform the Insurer the costly kitchen may well not be covered under the terms of the policy? I saw a property last week that was about £100,000 under insured!

3/. Your Insurer will have provided a route for you to gain access to "Legal Cover" this could, I stress the word Could provide you with legal assistance if you need it to pursue the builder and his PI + PL insurers if the roof collapses and the Builder goes out of business, his PI + PL WILL be valid up until the Builder goes out of business.

4/. Bottom line as has been posted above, A/. Talk to your insurer! B/. Most important, send them an e mail confirming the conversation and get a reply of confirmation. one other thing send them a copy of the builders PL+PI to ensure that your insurer is comfortable with them, at a later date the insurer can not turn round and say that the builders insurances are not valid to your insurer.

5/. In the thread above there is a link to a Specialist insurer who appears to offer cover during building work? I have been in this industry [Insurance] for about 15 years but never come across it before? if you intend using it do a big web search!

Ken
 
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So how many people insure their homes for the exact amount of contents they have, and the precise rebuilding cost?

Or do policies have a significant overhead of cover as standard?

Rebuilding costs only increase when the costs of rebuilding increase. Digging a trench for foundations does not add anything to rebuilding costs. Having a completed extension does.
 
Woody, Hi.

The Insurers generally give advice on what "general" costs are involved in the replacement value of contents, now this is where there is a rub, it is the insured's problem to inform the insurer of the value of the Contents of the property. only the insured can tell the insurer of the value of the Contents.

There are other sections in the policy as regards Contents such as single article possessions, say the Policy holder has a Silver vase won at a Flower shoe, the vase is worth say £ 4,000 then this must be declared, this notional cost is variable between insurer, if not and the vase is stolen in a break in the vase cost will NOT be covered!

In general, the Insurers do have a lee way that being, depending on the Insurer, if the Contents, or Property are under insured by not more than 20% to 35% the insurer will ask the Loss Adjuster handling the claim, to refer the claim to the insurer for their "Consideration"

As far as modern policies are concerned, there are a lot of Insurers that in normal Domestic Insurance cases, say a two / three / four bed residence the cover is £ 1,000,000, in effect un-limited, but this un-Limited option is highly variable, depending on the insurer.

Older Policies, meaning 5 / 10 / 15+ years old can obviously in domestic insurance terms, be well short of the true current cost of re-build, or as I have posted, someone purchased an Ex-local Authority property under the then Scottish Right to Buy, can at times be grossly under insured. We are talking here of Re-Build today not the market value, Up here in Scotland, this point with at times slightly lower market values has a bearing

Having said that I have encountered, only once where a development had been purchased and the Sums insured were Millions Under-insured" OK this is a very, VERY rare event, and the advice given to the new owners of the Complex was shall we say flawed?

Ken
 
To the OP

All you needed was a copy of the builders Public liability insurance and to notify your own insurance company of the works that you will be getting done. Your insurance company may want a copy of his insurance but that's unlikely. And they will be the ones to tell you if you need any additional insurances or steps to take Again unlikely but not unheard off

The Employer's insurance is for the builder and anybody that he employs directly. Not your concern
 
As a home owner, I want to check what insurance my builder has in place before starting remodelling work of my house.

Is public and employers liability enough to cover me if the worst was to happen eg a fire or total destruction of the house due to incompetence etc?

I understand buildings insurance is unlikely to cover such incidents and in fact endorsements will be placed on the policy when I inform them.

you don't seem to have much confidence in your builder, he's not even started yet and your already thinking the worst
 

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