Insurance during major renovation?

I’m buying a small house in the south Slope in need of large renovations. Because it’s uninhabitable as is, and will be under renovation for six months (maybe more), I’ve been told I need a builders risk policy as well as liability coverage–which will cost more than twice as much as a regular homeowner’s policy–even though my contractor will be covered as well. Does anyone have experience in getting this type of coverage? Any recommendations for agents/companies? Thoughts about saving a few bucks without risking being under-insured?

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in General Discussion 3 years ago

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Lurker | 3 years ago

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you may be required to have it by your mortgage company or current insurance. if you do any renovations that are more extensive than a threshold of what they might call “repairs” your regular insurance would probably not pay for any damage or injury, especially if your home is unoccupied during renovations. I think our policy was Zurich, which we bought through our broker, and if I recall we were able to shorten or lengthen the term and have it pro-rated? But it was like relatively expensive, like 1500 for a year?

resident2 | 3 years ago

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Call Jacob Schraiter: Independent Insurance Broker: 718-997-6930

Guest User | 3 years ago

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For our brick house, which is vacant during renovations, we got a quote for $11,341 for insurance for one year. It included “$250,000 limit for Perishable Goods Spoilage”, which I was told was boiler plate and couldn’t be removed. We opted to go without insurance. So far so good. Of course a major fire could pretty much wipe out our retirement accounts…

nyc_sport | 3 years ago

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Most traditional insurers do not write builders’ risk policies. Chubb did a rider on my Manhattan apartment when we gutted it, but when we re-did our weekend house neither Chubb nor any usual suspects did that sort of insurance. I think we used Zurich. You need an independent insurance broker who will be familiar with this. Perhaps I am numb because our insurance is rather expensive, but I do not recall it being outlandishly more expensive. My thoughts on not having the insurance would not be positive, but I am risk adverse and this is a drop on an otherwise deep bucket of cash of doing renovations in NY

Lurker | 3 years ago

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we did it by calling our insurance broker. they will want to know that you are doing work anyway as that will change the value of your house and/or may create issues that alter your coverage.

andriywww1990 | 3 years ago

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Bumping this up.

You need an independent broker who can address a variety of products.

I think someone named resident2 mentioned a broker in forest hills sometime back. Resident2 has expertise in real estate.

I use pinkham agency for my business but i am not sure of the range of their products. They are on LI. Big agency so they must carry a lot of stuff.

Anytime i have tried to get everything i need at say State Farm, i can’t.