Insurance

The specific insurance you’ll require for a house renovation will depend on the kind of work being undertaken, and the amount the property needs to be insured for.

A building insurance policy requires that you know the total cost of replacement of the home. With a renovation that adds value to a house, making it bigger, better looking and more useful, the old policy may leave you underinsured.

It’s a process our team has been through countless times, and we’ll be happy to help walk you through the steps of updating your insurance.

We strongly encourage you to discuss your home insurance policy before we embark on renovations. Some policies can become void when home extensions are undertaken, leaving you without protection and facing a long and complicated struggle with your insurer in the unlikely event that something goes wrong.

Before we start work, it’s a good idea for you to talk to your insurer, find out what your coverage is, and see if anything will change during home renovations.

Some home insurance policies become void after a set period of non-occupation. The downside of this is that if you haven’t resided in your house for a certain period of time, you won’t benefit from the protections of your home insurance policy during the renovation.

There are a few potential workarounds. If you’d like to continue residing at your property during the renovations, there’s a good chance we can accommodate that request. We require you to have access to some of your amenities (like the bathroom and your bedroom) but for many kinds of extension and renovation we can continue to work while you live on site.

If that’s not possible or desirable, there are other options. We’ll be able to provide you with a timeline for the job, and you’ll have the opportunity to discuss the impact of that timeline on your coverage with your insurer. The answer might be to change your insurance policy, or change our construction plans to suit your needs.