Metropol

Since a good few people on here are more seasoned at these things than me, I figured I'd ask something:

I was doing a broad search on moneysupermarket for home insurance quotes as I'm going to embrace city centre life (woo). Now, the flat is 100m away from a river, but on the first floor, so a lot of the quotes came back as impossible due to the risk of flooding. Is it worth chasing these companies up, or is there some insurancey reason a first floor flat is still at risk of flooding? I'm guessing an 8 foot surge is not what they'd expect.

I think it's more a general problem with flats/shared properties because you are effectively insuring against a risk of something happening in a part of the building which you don't specifically occupy. While it's very unlikely that your first floor flat would be flooded, any damage to the flats on the floor beneath you could render your home unsafe or cause structural damage. There is normally a "management company" run by tenants/owners of flats which have the main structural insurance for the building as a whole. It may be worth asking one of the other tenants/owners what the current arrangements are. Chances are there will be an annual fee paid to the management company to cover this, and you may get a better deal when looking for your own insurance if they are aware of the general one for the building as a whole.

So far as I know it's just contents insurace that's needed and the landlord's taking care of the rest, benevolent guy that he is.

Sput wrote:So far as I know it's just contents insurace that's needed and the landlord's taking care of the rest, benevolent guy that he is.

If it's just contents cover you need then the best bet is probably your bank. Since you are notorious for driving a hard bargain (ref: 3 retentions) then you may get a good deal from them. My entire building and contents insurance is only £12 a month through Barclays, so you're not looking at mega-bucks unless you have diamond-encrusted furniture or 60" plasma screens in every room.

Just a 45" in the bathroom. Didn't want to go over the top.