home insurance advise please

[PUP]

Hi all. looking for advise on renewing home insurance that will also cover my cabin, which holds the bulk of my pins, which is quite a collection. I have in the past used @ianw but this year Oakfields can only find insurer's that are quoting around £1300, which is a huge jump from last years £600. The house is a basic 3 bed semi with no other valuables other than my pin's. I am aware the fact I keep games in the cabin is the issue here, and why im not going to comparison sites, any advise on who to try (and trust) from others in the same boat would be appreciated.
thanks, Andy

 

[Fantazia2]

Hi all. looking for advise on renewing home insurance that will also cover my cabin, which holds the bulk of my pins, which is quite a collection. I have in the past used @ianw but this year Oakfields can only find insurer's that are quoting around £1300, which is a huge jump from last years £600. The house is a basic 3 bed semi with no other valuables other than my pin's. I am aware the fact I keep games in the cabin is the issue here, and why im not going to comparison sites, any advise on who to try (and trust) from others in the same boat would be appreciated.
thanks, Andy

Put Pins in the House, move into the cabin. Problem solved.

 

[Calimori]

There has been a few threads on this, I am due to be in the same boat.
As you highlight, it is having them in an outhouse and wanting them fully insured, that has been the reason we have used Oakfield. And they appear to have lost access to the underwriter who was giving us the existing policies.
Which means that we can either:

1. Move them to the house, continue being fully insured
2. Leave them in the outhouse, lose having them fully insured
3. Pay the money
4. Continue the hunt for an organisation who understands the risk

No one has found 4, and I am not sure which of the other 3 people went with.
I might do a mixture of 1 and 2. Find how to reduce the cost by moving the expensive ones into the house, having the others uninsured. But we have a few other things that might mean our policy is already going to limit our options.

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

There has been a few threads on this, I am due to be in the same boat.
As you highlight, it is having them in an outhouse and wanting them fully insured, that has been the reason we have used Oakfield. And they appear to have lost access to the underwriter who was giving us the existing policies.
Which means that we can either:

1. Move them to the house, continue being fully insured
2. Leave them in the outhouse, lose having them fully insured
3. Pay the money
4. Continue the hunt for an organisation who understands the risk

No one has found 4, and I am not sure which of the other 3 people went with.
I might do a mixture of 1 and 2. Find how to reduce the cost by moving the expensive ones into the house, having the others uninsured. But we have a few other things that might mean our policy is already going to limit our options.

I think in the recent thread we were weighing up the actual risks - why are you insuring them.
Theft seemed unlikely for many of us - for obvs reasons.
Accidental damage ? Cabin collapses ?
Fire and flood the big ones . Folk can weigh up chances of those and guard against them as best you can .

Seems to me if you can’t get peace of mind - the whole point of insurance - and end up getting some half way house insurance then you might as well take your chances .
What’s the worst that can happen ? Runs to GrizZ Shack to check it isn’t on fire

 

[Dave Bishop]

my cabin has no running water, I had trees that could fall on the cabin removed - as well as next door . The electrical side all RCD in cabin and house..
7ft high fence, big gate with lock at end of shared alleyway.

Pins are safer in the cabin when you look at it from a water leak point of view and if the neighbours or my house catches fire.. which always has electrical things plugged in and turned on..fridges, TV, phone chargers etc..

My quote too was £1300. No way paying that.

 

[Tilt_Birmingham]

Would the quote come down is you had a monitored alarm system and also maybe putting up some cctv (cheap)

 

[lukewells]

What about register a business at your outbuilding/cabin and get commercial storage insurance?

 

[lukewells]

For my house with pins in the cabin, I got a Halifax Unlimited Platinum policy really cheap a few years ago. They don't seem to allow new customers to get this policy now, so I have to just keep paying whatever the renewal price is

I believe you can still buy the "unlimited" Bronze / silver / Gold policies (but they are limited so i don't understand the naming )

The reason I got the Platinum unlimited is that they treat all outbuildings the same as the house in terms of contents limits.

It might be worth you checking if this also applies to the Bronze / Silver / Gold for anyone struggling to find something

 

[DRD]

Loads of us have been caught out by this so it is good we share intelligence.

Try National Farmers' Union Insurance. They understand outbuildings/ unusual properties etc.

The problem is that most insurers see outbuildings as vulnerable and think pinball machines are as risky as power tools.

Increased outbuilding theft of high value bicycles has knackered us. Given the economy and the levels of drugs/ illegal migrants sat around in hotels all day/ police focusing on Twitter crimes - this will only get worse.

We will struggle to educate insurers - hence why Ian's policy was so popular in our nerdy community. i have a steel security door and metal shutters on my pinshed - most insurers just dont wanna know.

A monitored alarm and proper CCTV might help a bit. The killer with these are that if they fail/ you don't have them serviced annually/ you forget to alarm it one day you might not be covered.

I am finding that because of outbuildings, insurers want to push you towards posh mid and high net worth policies. These more expensive policies cover possessions outside of the home and have accident cover too. Hence the much greater cost.

We all have different risk appetites and abilities to take financial hits. A real world consideration is whether you slim the collection down and move it inside the house.

 

[JMP]

Would the quote come down is you had a monitored alarm system and also maybe putting up some cctv (cheap)

For domestic insurance, any discount is likely to be minimal as theft isn't the main risk and system installers would likely need NSI / SSAIB approval to be recognised by the insurer.

 

[ianw]

We haven't had a pinball related claim in 10 years we have been providing the cover. The insurers viewed them low risk. The insurers, us, have been taken over, new owners have different approach ...... My last day was yesterday, now on gardening leave.
Oakfield Insurance is a separate company, which I'm still involved.