Property Developer: Buildings Insurance
Background
Our client was due to purchase an unoccupied building. Despite being warned about the potential difficulties of this and the need to give us adequate notice, the client called us the day before completion of the purchase and said that we needed to arrange cover immediately.
Problem
Insurers are averse to insuring unoccupied buildings so we had significant difficulty getting cover at all, let alone a competitive premium at such short notice. We were up against a deadline and knew that finding an insurer to take on the risk would be a challenge.
What we did
Through our standing in the market we were able to directly approach the insurer for the seller. This is normally not achievable because the seller was not our client and, technically speaking, they still owned the building.
We convinced the insurer to roll-over the terms of cover but on a separate policy in our client’s name. This was a major achievement because the building had been part of a major property portfolio and they had initially refused to insure it in isolation.
Outcome
It is highly likely the property purchase would have fallen through if we not acted so decisively to obtain cover at such short notice. We also managed to achieve a lower premium than the previous broker.
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