House Insurance - post earthquake.

09/08/2017 - 06:19

House Insurance - post earthquake. Unsurprisingly, our insurance company - has withdrawn our house building and contents insurance on our renewal this year, already having withdrawn earthquake cover from September of last year. Our house in Marche was badly damaged by the earthquake in August 2016 and we are still awaitiing permission from the �� goverment to repair/rebuild. The insurance company have made a payment to cover some of the damage, but in typical insurance fashion, decided we were underinsured and reduced the payment accordingly. However, we are now in a situation where they won't renew the insurance for the current un-repaired house. I believe that the company - Andrew Copeland International Ltd are withdrawing from the �� market. and I think that it is going to be very difficult to find a new insurer to take on this risk. Any advice or anyone else in the same boat ?

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Property

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Our house was fairly badly damaged in the earthquakes as well. Our insurance company has been excellent. They supplied a temporary accomodation unit, plus a new heat pump as the other was damaged. Renewal was due in May and came through with no problem, although the premium had increased, which we expected.Repairs start on the house within the next weeks and hopefully completed by the new year.Perhaps worth getting in touch with them.Intasure.com

Thanks Badger - got a quote from Intasure (I have to say that they are very helpful on the phone) but quoted £2500 for basic bldg insurance against my previous pre-earthquake bldgs and contents fee of around £700. Would you mind me asking you what category of damage your house is, as ours is 'E' and my engineer says the government have still not given permission to start the repair. Thanks

I believe ours is also classed a category E as it is not classed as habitable. One corner of the house is badly damaged and has had to be strapped up to stop any more stone falling out, chimneys had to be taken down as well. Many more cracks on the outside and inside.Our insurance before was just under £400, but the renewal was just over £1000 for the building only.Because the insurance company are paying for the agreed repair cost, our geometre has already put the plans in to the commune and province, so that work can start next week.As fa as am aware, there is authorisation for minor repairs from the Gov, but major ones are going to take quite some time.Sorry your quote was so high, but I think this will be the case after this tragic event.

Hi Badger - I am interested in how your house repair is going.My structural engineer seems to want to wait to see what the government says. Even though we were insured for earthquake damage , and have been paid out for a repair- there is a question on whether the house is worth repairing or whether we should demolish and rebuild with seismic controls. We have currently got 18 steel ties holding up the four walls - which don't exactly look pretty !I am also wondering whether a repaired, earthqake damaged house, will have any value in the future if you try and sell it.Any opinions on this ?

Hi ClombardelliThings are moving forward very fast at the moment. Part of the interior has already been repaired, with the interior less damaged walls having seismic improvements, e.g seismic cement and strapping underneath.We do currently have some reinforcing added. There are a couple of bars visible externally due to it being a external part of the house, but they have tried where possible to hide strengthening plates inside the walls. We do have one metal bar across the main sitting room wall from back to front, but this will be fairly well disguised once the repaint is completed.They have used the main beams of the house to act for strength, so we have numerous U shaped steel brackets inside, with the star type external units.The geologist who came to check for the rock depth found that it was at 15 mtrs, so putting in concrete to reinforce would have been very difficult. Our geometre has found another company that will inject a resin into the clay at about 4m depth to harden it, therefore making a type of foundation. Cost is circa 30k, and at the moment just waiting to see if the insurance will authorise.Tomorrow, from what I understand, the most badly damaged walls will be coming down to be rebuilt and then they will look at more work in the cantina area, with internal wall strengthening.The house according to the plate in the wall was built circa 1759, so would not really want to completely knock it down as it would loose a lot of its character and charm. Will it resell, who knows, but at the moment with 2 dogs, we have not thought about it. To be honest if not for the dogs we would have gone to live in the Far East while things were sorted here.

Thanks so much for all this information. Another question for you, if you don't mind.Did you engineer produce a report on how to seismic retrofit your house with detailed plans and costs ?My house was built around 1865. My structural engineer has produced a report to repair the house, which included the steel ties, and resin injections for the foundations on on two sides of the house. However I have asked him if there is anything else that is needed - like steel ties in the roof , etc, and I get a bit of the usual �� shrug of the shoulders.Thinking long term, and about trying to realise an asset in the future, I was thinking if I could produce, for a potential buyer, the seismic retrofit report and then the invoices to show the work was done, that it would possibly have some value in the future if I wished to sell. Hope it's OK me asking you these detailed questions, but please let me know if not. Thanks.

No problem about the questions.Our Geometre put in the initial plans for the siesmic improvements and approximate cost for the foundation works. When the geologists tested the soil depth they decided that it was far too complicated to strengthen the foundation with just concrete and stainless steel poles etc. We did have this costed in and a very long report regarding these facts. Costings for both the initial idea and the resin would be very similar from what I understand.The resin injection company, used the initial report on the situation and have given another detailed report, which actually includes injecting the resin all around the house and in the cantina areas which are only used for storage etc.. The rein injection does come with a guarantee and we have a 10 page report on what needs to be done.The roof on the house was completely renovated to seismic standards and there are no actual ceilings as we go to the roofline. This is why they are using the beams instead of trying to use steel bars.The floor that we live on was also virtually fully remade and reinforced as it has underfloor heating. I believe there is some talk of putting other internal walls inside the existing cantina area, plus using the new beams there as strengthening points as well. All very complicated!!!Crane is supposed to arrive tomorrow, as they did not want to destroy the ground around the house with lorries while they take the badly damaged wall down to rebuild.If you have any other questions, there is no problem if I can answer them.

Clombardelli.Some answers, may be better by a PM system, which is not available here. I would invite you to come over and see what is going on with the building here, but am not going to post open address details on this site.You can contact me via the italy dot forumotion dot com site. I am under the name of geotherm on there.