Buildings Insurance for new houses.....

[matt66]

Is buying Buildings Insurance on new houses (with a NHBC certficate) a bit of a waste of money. especially if you live in an area with no history of flooding or subsidence. is the insurance industry not playing on fears of the people and instilling fear by ramming the need for such insurance down your throat and playing the fear card. the ratio of claims made (with new houses) to insurance taken must be miniscule.

[dzug]

What if it burns down? What if it is vandalised? What happens if someone backs a truck into it?

[matt66]

How often have you seen a house burning down. How do the odds compare with say winning the lottery?

[Ethel]

matt66

This is entirely hypothetical if you have a mortgage because it is a requirement of all mortgages that adequate building insurance is in place.

A car could run in to your house. You could have a fire, explosion, vandalism, lightning strike. You could have a burst pipe or leave a plug in with the tap running.
Your neighbour could have an explosion...

Most builidings insurance claims have nothing to do with quality of build or inherent faults.

[kazza12345]

i don't think you can ever say home insurance is a waste of money ... what if a car who wasn't insured drove into your house? or (as happened to me) a water main bursts that you are responsible for (that caused over 2000 pounds worth of damage, and i was quite glad for the 15 quid i'd been paying a month) What if a tree fell on it, or your roof blew off in a freak tornado like they had in brum a few years ago? Or an explosion like the one in hertforshire? Ok so the odds of all this happening are statistically unlikely, but lower somewhat when you say what are the odds of a car hitting it ...or... lightening strike ... or explosion.... or tree ... or water main ... or fire ... or flood

[lady_p_gold]

And how often does a bloody great petrol storage tank blow up and destroy half the houses all around ....... oh yes ... a few months ago ....

[SalisburyMik]

matt 66 - as Ethel says - the two are completely separate policies - buildings insurance covers damage, flooding, subsidence etc (i.e. mainly accidental damage) whereas an NHBC cert covers building defects in the construction and usually expires 10 years after the house is built - as a householder paying no doubt tens if not 100's thousands on a house why would you scrimp on a few hundred for house insurance. No, cars don't crash into houses often but winds do take of roofs!!

[jake-the-peg]

There are 50,000 accidental house fires each year so roughly speaking about a thousand times more likely than winning the lottery.

In 2004 there were just over �2 billion paid out on domestic property damage ( a low year ) with an average of �4-5,000 which gives 500,000 claims a year.

with 20 million househoulds that gives you a 1 in 40 chance of making a claim

[matt66]

fair enough jake, i will renew the insurance this year.