Jacob Rosse wrote
The house that I am buying (3-bed detached in suburban estate) is coming
near to exchange of contracts and I decided to ring up my existing insurer
(esure) to arrange buildings insurance. They told me they wouldn't cover
that post code full stop because of subsidence. All the other insurers I
have had online quotes from today have not mentioned a problem and the
premiums (around £100-200 annual) have not been much more than my current
house (2-bed semi just up the road). Even Halifax and rbs which are supposed
to be in the same group have had no problems offering cover This of course
sent me into a panic and may mean I need a full survey done. Could this be
down to esure cherry picking and refusing based on some minor land slide
claim they have had in the past or should I be seriously worried?

Also the homebuyer professional book that come back with the searches says
it is low risk for subsidence - the post code is NN8 5ZB if anyone can tell
me any more. The lady at esure mentioned something about 10% but not sure
what that means.

Jacob - if you go to www.homecheck.co.uk you can enter the postcode of a
property and it will report on various issues such as flood risk, radon,
subsidence etc etc. I entered your postcode at Wellingborough and this was the
report on subsidence, supplied by the British Geological Society:

"There is a low risk of foundation damage to domestic properties from natural
subsidence hazards within the postcode NN8 5ZB.

This assessment takes no account of the type of housing, or of coal or other
forms of mining, or the effects of localised foundation damage from trees or
other vegetation, or from other man-made hazards such as excavations or leaking
drains."

In this sense, they rate "low risk" as one up from "no risk". The second
paragraph means this report is based only on the known soil type, which I think
in this area Lower Lias blue clay. This is rather silly IMO - millions of
houses on clay soils have suffered no subsidence whatsoever - the problem is
very localised - caused mainly by vegetation. And if it's a fairly modern house
(1976 or later) the foundation design will have taken account of the soil type
and any big trees close by.

As someone said, esure are being over-touchy about this.

HTH
Peter