26 August 2024

Protecting your Self-Build Project from Start to Finish and Beyond

A simple green outline of a house, featuring a triangular roof and a rectangular chimney against a white background.
By Self Build Zone
site insurance policy

Building your own home is a journey filled with excitement, creativity, and personal fulfilment.

Unlike buying an existing property, self-building allows you to customise every aspect of your home to match your unique vision and lifestyle aspirations. However, this dream also comes with its share of risks and challenges. To alleviate these risks, securing appropriate site insurance to cover your project throughout your build and ensuring a structural warranty are vital steps in your self-build journey.

As soon as you purchase a plot, you become responsible for it and, more importantly, responsible for anyone getting hurt, whether visiting as a guest or trespassing. So, make sure you are protected with a public liability policy. When you’re ready to start your build, you must be fully covered with an all-risk policy. This will protect your site from theft, fire, storm, anyone you bring on site, any existing structure and more. Your site insurance is unique to your build and covers the whole cost of the build, as well as public liability and employers’ liability. 

WON’T MY BUILDER’S INSURANCE COVER IT?

You may think your builder has insurance, but often, this isn’t enough to cover the whole build and includes exclusions for when they aren’t on-site. If you need to prove they are at fault, a claim can take years. Appropriate site insurance removes this stress and allows you to continue your project minus the headaches.

WHAT IS COVERED BY SELF-BUILD SITE INSURANCE?

Site Insurance is necessary to protect your investment when carrying out a renovation, conversion, extension, or new build. A self-build Site Insurance policy covers any new work, existing structures, and the rest of the site. It protects against losses such as fire, theft, flood, storm damage, vandalism, and accidental damage.

WHY DO I NEED A STRUCTURAL WARRANTY?

Many people build their homes with the full intention of staying in them and then find themselves needing to move and unable to because they didn’t arrange a structural warranty. A structural warranty is an insurance policy that protects new works against defects in design, workmanship and materials for 10 years. More importantly, it is a lender requirement in the UK, meaning you will need one if you wish to use a mortgage or sell the property to someone using a lender. 

WHEN SHOULD I ARRANGE A WARRANTY?

A structural warranty should always be arranged before you start (usually when you arrange your site insurance). This is because, for a structural warranty to be issued on completion, your project must be signed off by an approved inspector for the required technical inspections of the insurer. The first visit is often when foundations are excavated. If you do not arrange your warranty before you start, you will pay more for retrospective surveys.

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR WARRANTY PROVIDER

You need to make sure your provider is ‘A’ Rated. A structural warranty isn’t the same as your average annual insurance policy. You need to be confident that your provider will still be running at the end of the 10 years, or your home could end up uninsured and in breach of mortgage conditions.

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