Megapolis Insurance

The Met Office reported earlier this year that this summer has been the driest since 1964…subsidence could be a very real threat. Subsidence claims can run to tens of thousands of pounds if a property has to be underpinned or rebuilt, so it’s important that your UK holiday home insurance provides suitable protection.

Subsidence and its related perils can cause serious structural damage to a building and it’s prudent to understand just how common they may be in a given area.

Of course, this isn’t just an insurance issue. It’s typically also highly desirable to know about these risks in a location before you decide to purchase a property to begin with.

What is subsidence?

But first of all, what may cause this very-expensive-to-put-right problem?

Subsidence is more common in older houses (pre-1965 but especially Victorian homes) that have shallower foundations. Dry weather can exacerbate shrinking clay soil and that, coupled with hedges and trees planted too close to buildings that take moisture from the soil, means that the ground shifts and the building’s foundations start to crack.

Damaged or blocked drains may also cause a problem if they leak water which will start to wash away the soil. Even a change in water tables could have an effect.

Signs of subsidence may typically include:

• cracks the thickness of a ten pence piece, which suddenly appear in plasterwork;

• cracks outside in the weak points in the brickwork (for example around doors and windows);

• these cracks tend to run diagonally, being wider at the top than at the bottom;

• doors or windows that stick or won’t close at all (possibly indicating movement of the building).

Of course, if you have cracks, this doesn’t automatically mean that your property is suffering from subsidence. All houses may move a little, especially new builds while they ‘settle in’ – this is normal.

However, it may make sense to get a specialist to have a look if you are in any doubt. The sooner subsidence/landslip or heave is tackled, often the easier (and less expensive) it may be to remedy.

And, just for your information, heave is almost the opposite of subsidence where the clay soil absorbs more water than normal and swells, ‘heaving’ the house upward. Landslip is where the ground beneath your home starts to slope downward.

Insurance problems and sources of information

Properties in a location with a known history of subsidence or slip may prove to be a riskier capital investment than those that are not. If a property or area has a history of subsidence problems they may also prove more expensive to insure, plus the excess is likely to be substantially more. In some instances, homeowners may find it difficult to get any cover at all.

If you’re going through the purchasing process in the UK, your solicitor may be able to include a check for known subsidence/heave problems in their searches. Asking them for a specific statement might be a useful idea.

You can also check with the local council. Individual councils’ policies may vary but typically they’ll have a county or borough engineers’ department or a surveying section that may be able to help.

Another classic source is your own surveyor. If you’re paying for a property survey, it will typically report any obvious signs of heave of subsidence but it may not comment specifically on the general locality. Once again, speaking to the surveyor may allow you to draw on their knowledge of the wider area.

Finally, insurers may be able to consult their own databases of known subsidence risks by UK postal code. Although it’s not the insurer’s responsibility to offer you investment advice, they may be able to share with you whether or not there is a known higher risk in the locality of your property.

Getting insured

We recognise that things such as extremely dry summers may increase the risks of subsidence and we include protection against these risks in our UK holiday home insurance as part of the buildings cover.

If your property suffers major structural damage as a result of these types of problems, the costs could be severe indeed.

That’s why it’s worth making sure that your holiday home insurance provides you with the subsidence cover you need. As always, we recommend that you scour the small print to check exactly what is covered before you take out cover.

We will be only too happy to explain anything in our policy that is not immediately clear to you.

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