Buildings insurance

I haven't been able to find a thread on this, so I'm posting this in the hope someone can offer some advice.  Does anyone have any experience of acquiring buildings insurance for Italian properties (a flat) for non-residents?  For example, is it better to do this via a UK-based company or an Italian one?  Do these policies distinguish between buildings and content?

We have insurance with a UK insurer for our house in Italy, partly because we wanted to be able to deal in english if anything went wrong.  I believe there are also Italian insurers that are available.  

Our insurer, in common I think with all other insurers I've ever come across, does distinguish between buildings and contents but our contents are really only covered if someone in authority has been in residence at least 21 days prior to the event leading to a claim.  I'd have thought that sort of cover was next to useless, but on the other hand it only makes about £20 difference to the cost of the policy so we threw it in the mix

Thanks, Carciofo.  Can you tell me what UK insurer you use?

We use Intasure Intasure for our house although we live here; quotes very cheap (ours is about £300/pa) and even covers Earthquake damage.

We are with Andrew Copeland International http://www.andrewcopeland.co.uk/overseas_property.html

They cover earthquake and landslip which we thought was important, but I don't find them particularly cheap. That said, I think I found a recommendation for them online and I didn't really shop around much.

If you are nonresident its best to use a UK based company, unless the Post Office still does insurance for nonresidents.  The PO offers cheap insurance with free earthquake cover.  Otherwise Generali online are decent again with earthquake cover for residents

We looked around 2 years ago and got fed up with it, so still don't have any insurance here. Found Andrew Copeland the least helpful of the lot, this mainly due to the fact they wanted to know the rebuilding cost of the house. After telling them we did not have a clue they replied that clients of theirs got the information off the internet (pity they did not provide links). This seemed to confirm to me the information is likely simply a "get out"  clause and not the type of customer service you would want. Intasure on the other hand were bang on with their quote and seemed easy to deal with. Looking at the quote just now and it was £350 for building and contents, which compared to our previous UK insurance for a similar house (£150 - Sainsburys), we thought it was high. I have also noticed that although it covers earthquake it does NOT cover subsidence, which to me is as much, if not more important here in Italy. I'm sure they will quote for it to be included, but obviously that's going to bump it up yet again.

Just a quick update on this one. It prompted me to get a new quote from Intasure and within minutes of filling in the on-line information they called us here Italy to ask a few questions and quoted circa £330 and are emailing the quote out. One thing I asked was about landslide and the answer is they DON'T cover landslide in Italy...    Not too sure if it is that important to us, but can see why as there is so much of it here. The lady did however confirm it would be covered if caused by an earthquake.  

stevegwmonkseaton wrote:The lady did however confirm it would be covered if caused by an earthquake.  

I'm sure you will but I'd get that in writing before shelling out £330!    

The lack of cover for landslide / landslip is, as you say Steve,  a serious omission given the propensity for homes to be built on hillsides so Intasure is not an option.  I have got a quote from Andrew Copeland, though, who do cover landslip.  Perhaps they have changed their modus operandi since you spoke to them.  All they needed to establish a re-build price was the square metres for the property - a flat in a block of three in my case.  They extrapolate from that i.e. €1500 per square metre plus an architect fee of 10%.

One thing we discovered as a result of trying to make a claim on some peripheral damage (by the way they would not be persuaded that the damage came within the defined insured risk) was that they did not agree with the value we had put on the house and as a result we had to agree to up the insured value.  This only came about because they sent an assessor out to investigate our claim.  We were of course unhappy that our costs went up, but on the other hand better to find out now rather than after the house is seriously damaged by landslip or earthquake.

And while I think of it, regarding landslip, does anyone know what to look out for when buying property? Are all hillside houses vulnerable?

Carciofo wrote:And while I think of it, regarding landslip, does anyone know what to look out for when buying property?  Are all hillside houses vulnerable?

I strongly suspect that would depend on the type of hill, land and a few other factors. We have a dirty big hill behind us, which if it came our way would cover us and the large hill our house is built on. So we are within layer upon layer, but the type of land it is does not seem to give way (or more precise our way) to landslide. There has been landslides around us, but most of these go the other way, often towards to road, so I wonder if the road has been laid in a natural area that has fallen at some point in the past or is a combination of this and the fact the dug out land has simply been piled back above the road.... I think many people would avoid a house sitting in a hill side or on a hill side above a road. We are up a steep hill, but it is an entire hill (if you now what I mean) where at the top of it there is a flat (or been flattened) area which extends well out beyond the house all around it. I most certainly do think it is a point worth looking at when buying. Oh by the way, bottom of the hill, especially by the river, is where everyone else's cr@p goes...      

Neil D wrote:The lack of cover for landslide / landslip is, as you say Steve,  a serious omission given the propensity for homes to be built on hillsides so Intasure is not an option.  I have got a quote from Andrew Copeland, though, who do cover landslip.  Perhaps they have changed their modus operandi since you spoke to them.  All they needed to establish a re-build price was the square metres for the property - a flat in a block of three in my case.  They extrapolate from that i.e. €1500 per square metre plus an architect fee of 10%.

Thanks Neil, I may well give them another try, however were they too expensive? Like I said I don't really think landslide is a problem for us, but it would be good to have. Of course you are right "G", better to have everything in writing with these people, which is likely why we don't have any insurance at the moment.... Just a thought on that subject, perhaps it does not matter as much if you have a house here and in the UK... Not quite as likely to suffer the loss of both at the same time... it's only down to money then...

stevegwmonkseaton wrote:... it's only down to money then...

Well yes, but it's the money I'd be worried about.   

stevegwmonkseaton wrote:
Thanks Neil, I may well give them another try, however were they too expensive?

£486 - so, expensive by  standards for UK properties certainly and no contents either.  There's also the small matter of £5000 excess on the big ticket items - quakes, landslide, subsidence etc.  Probably 5 times what you would pay here for an excess (certainly on subsidence). Maybe we have a more competitive market for properties here.  I don't think many Italians bother with this kind of insurance and there are fewer owner-occupiers to make the market more competitive.

We use Intasure, but not too worried about the landslip cover. We are not really on a major hillside where landslip could occur.

The PO no longer does quake, landslip insurance.  But Genertel does quake, frana and flood included in the price.  By far the best.