If you own a coach house you will need a policy that will insure the whole property including all the garages, your own garage (freehold) and those on Leasehold to neighbours. These are usually on lease on a 999 year Peppercorn Leasehold.
You must include the Legal Liability cover you need to protect your liabilities as freeholder to the leaseholder’s, whilst insuring the whole building including the garages on lease.
Coach House Insurance must include but not be limited to:
• All Perils – these are things like Fire, Storm Flood etc.. including Escape of Water
• Impact and Collision – This covers the property should anyone hit the building with a car – such as a slight miss when driving into a garage!
• £2m Property Owners Legal Liability, which is the part of the policy that protects your legal liabilities to the leaseholder.
• Accidental Damage – this is optional, and covers things like a spillage on the sofa, and DIY disasters.
• Personal Possession Cover – this is also optional and includes your day-to-day valuables when you take them out of the house – mobile telephones, handbags, camera’s etc…
• Specified Items – you can specify any particular valuables you have over £1,500 in value for example.
Plus much more!
You can expect all the regular Features and Benefits that Home Insurance offers whilst tailoring a policy to meet your specific needs of your property.
Why is it so difficult? There are more and more of these types of properties being built all the time so it is a shame that the insurance industry has not kept up, this does make things difficult for the owners of coach houses and the market is much more limited. The legal liability aspect of the property arrangement is something that most insurers do not understand, so they simply decline cover or impose huge ratings on the premium to cover the risk. The fact of the matter is that there is no more risk to insuring a coach house as any other type of property. It comes down to lack of knowledge.
There are Insurer’s who are very skilled at writing good quality bespoke insurance for these types of properties, you need to look hard enough.
What NOT to do. Never insure your coach house as a detached house because it is not a detached house, never insure your coach house as a flat because it is not a flat. This seems obvious but some people simply change the description of the property to suit the check box! Any claims made on a policy with incorrect information submitted by the policy owner will be rejected. You cannot insure a BMW as a ford and the same logic applies.
What you should do. Always insure a coach house as a coach house and find an insurer that covers coach houses. Whilst this will be more time-consuming and need more research on your part, you must insure your property accurately to protect it and you.