Page 9 - The Centor Difference

Property Developer: Buildings Insurance Background: Our client was due to purchase an unoccupied building. Despite being warned of the potential difficulties and need to give us adequate notice, the insured called us the day before completion and said that we needed to arrange cover immediately. Problem: Insurers are adverse to writing unoccupied buildings so we had significant difficulty getting cover at all, let alone a competitive premium at such short notice. 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 the terms of cover over but on a separate policy in our insured’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: Had we not acted so decisively to obtain cover at such short notice, it is highly likely the property purchase would have fallen through. We also managed to achieve a lower premium than the previous broker.