A brief guide to renovation insurance

Unless your plans involve little more than a lick of paint and generally sprucing up the decoration of your home or commercial property, you might want to be wary of the limitations and restrictions imposed by your current insurance arrangements.

If your renovation plans involve structural alterations or the addition of an extension, for example, home insurance, landlord insurance and commercial property insurance policies are unlikely to provide the protection you need and may specifically exclude cover for damage to the existing structure of your property.

Furthermore, renovations– particularly on the types of property described in an article by Real Homes on the 22^nd of November 2017 – are often so extensive that you need to move out whilst the works are in progress. In that case, the premises are effectively left vacant and unoccupied. And empty properties are likely to be subject to still further restrictions on the scope of your existing insurance cover.

If you are looking for inspiration for your renovation project, you might want to visit one of the several shows and exhibitions organised in various parts of the country during 2018 by Home Building and Renovating magazine.

Renovation insurance

In place of the existing cover, therefore, specialist standalone renovation insurance is usually required to restore the safeguards your property needs, potentially extending cover not just to the new building works but also the existing structure of the building.

In addition to the building works, renovation insurance may also protect the material, supplies, tools and equipment onsite from theft, loss or damage.

Even though you may be absent from the site during the renovation works and the property stands unoccupied, you may remain liable for accidents which occur and which cause injury or property damage to neighbours, members of the public and other third parties. Specialist renovation insurance, therefore, usually includes provision for continued public liability insurance.

These types of claim – especially when physical injuries are concerned – may involve substantial sums. Public liability insurance, therefore, might typically provide indemnity against claims of up to £2 million.

For the duration of the renovation works, unoccupied property insurance is also maintained, so that your property remains protected even when it is empty. Not only is this likely to provide the cover you need against risks of loss or damage, but also satisfies conditions likely to be imposed by any mortgage lender that the building remains suitably insured at all times.

Protection Plan

Renovation insurance is available from a number of sources. However, you might want the reassurance and security of buying the cover from a specialist provider, with expertise and experience in this niche of the insurance market.

Some specialist providers, for instance, may arrange cover through a leading insurer of all types of renovation project called Renovation Plan.

Renovation Plan is a flexible and versatile product, available in two principal forms, allowing you to look to tailor the insurance cover to meet the needs and requirements of your individual project, whilst potentially keeping all the elements of essential insurance under a single policy.

Once the renovation works have finished, you may revert to your standard home insurance, landlord insurance or commercial property insurance arrangements – but remember to consider updating and upgrading the level of building sums insured cover which the remodelled building is likely to need.