Apartment Insurance

[Rosehillgirl]

Hi,

We have an apartment on a site which is managed by a large Estate Agent/Management Company.

In addition to the annual management fee we are required to pay 'block' insurance of around £100 to insure the fabric of the building. We pay a further fee of around £40 for contents.

We have had two problems this year-caused by rainwater and the insurance company didn't want to know-even though the insurance is supposed to cover this.

I am reluctant to give this company any more of our money-we would prefer to make our own arrangements for the buildings and contents insurance.

Is it possible to insure one apartment separately from the rest of the block (6 in total?).

Can anyone recommend a good insurer?

Thanks

Rosie

[Deniz1]

I would closely look at the small print on your purchase contract first.

[guru]

You can do your contents insurance yourself but unfortunately on communal apartment complexes anything other than a block policy for the whole site is a disaster waiting to happen imo!! We are on a complex with a block policy, but before this there was nothing in place and nothing to force individual owners to take out their own buildings insurance, meaning that in the event of a major structural problem to your block, if some owners haven't insured the building what are you going to do? What if the uninsured owners refuse to pay up for their share of repairs? Are the insured owners going to pay it? Court action is an option, but this is both costly, complicated, and can take months if not years to resolve with no guaranteed result!

Unfortunately a lot of insurance companies in TRNC will try to wangle their way out of paying if at all possible, you don't say whether the claim was under your contents or the building insurance.

[Makum]

You will probably find that if nothing is mentioned in either your of sale contract or site constitution the the decision that has been made has been done by your elected committee and backed up by a vote at an AGM. If this is the case, it is not written in granite and can be changed if enough site members want it.
Insurance here is not really worth the paper it's written on, the site which I have an apartment on pays approx 9k a year via the site management company and have never had a claim of any serious nature accepted by the insurance company, always a wriggle out in the fine print. If all the money that had been handed over to the insurance company had been held in an account by the site we would have had enough to rebuild the place twice over. If there is ever an earth quake over here believe me the fist boat back to Turkey will be full of insurance company top brass. Welcome to devils island.

[Grockle]

Have a word with Steve at Cafe Boss. He does apartment insurance policies.

[the butlers wife]

Unfortunately you cannot force people to take out block insurance here. We have had this problem on our complex where owners have said they want to be free to choose their own insurer and the owners committee are powerless to alter this.

The apartments here are in blocks of four, which you would think would be easy to come to some agreement between the owners, but this has proved impossible. I once asked an insurance agent what would happen if there was damage to a neighbouring apartment through flooding, fire, explosion etc. I was told that the person who made the claim, would contact their insurance company and that insurance company would rectify the damage to all neighbouring apartments. They would then claim from the neighbours insurance companies. This of course has never been tested and I hope it never is, but it would be interesting to see what would happen.



The butlers wife

[Ailsa]

Hi, we are one block of 5 apartments and we all have our own buildings and contents insurance. I am in U.K. at moment, but 4 weeks ago while I wasn't there a friend noticed that my front balcony had been smashed bigtime! To cut a long story short I phoned my insurance, and they have been brilliant!!!! Less than 4 weeks after the horrendous damage, it is all fixed!!!! So, thank God I don't have to see the wrecked balcony when I go out to Cyprus in 4 weeks. So I would heartily recommend taking out your property insurance with the Iktisat bank!!!!! I can't speak highly enough of them! Not like my insurances in U.K. Hope this helps some of you forum members!!!!! Regards to all, Ailsa. By the way, the whole balcony had to be totally rebuilt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[guru]

I was told that the person who made the claim, would contact their insurance company and that insurance company would rectify the damage to all neighbouring apartments. They would then claim from the neighbours insurance companies. This of course has never been tested and I hope it never is, but it would be interesting to see what would happen.

More likely, what if the neighbour hadn't bothered to take out any insurance at all? Will the claimants' insurance company still go ahead and carry out the repairs and take the neighbour to court? I doubt it, more likely the claimant will have to pay and take the neighbour to court.

You see, a total can of worms. There's no more a guarantee that an insurer will pay out in TRNC on an individual claim than on a block policy but without a block policy the potential problems are far greater IMHO.

[the butlers wife]

Guru,

How would you make owners take out block insurance then? Unless there is a law saying it is compulsory how can you force this?
By the way I don't live in an apartment, so don't personally have to worry about this but there are apartments on our complex.




The butlers wife

[guru]

How would you make owners take out block insurance then? Unless there is a law saying it is compulsory how can you force this?
By the way I don't live in an apartment, so don't personally have to worry about this but there are apartments on our complex.

Hi Butlers Wife,

It should form part of your site's constitution (if you have one) which owners are obligated to follow. As Makum put so well in message 4, the constitution can be changed but only if sufficient owners agree to the change at the owners' AGM.

Don't get me wrong I'm not against individuals arranging their own insurance of course we do that for our home in the UK but some situations (particularly in TRNC) are different! If you have a small development where everybody knows everybody and all are responsible then individual insurance shouldn't be a problem, but on a larger site where there are owners based in many different countries, some of whom don't know each other (or care to know each other!!!) it's a job getting some of them to cough up for their maintenance fees on time let alone leaving them to their own devices or trusting them to ensure that they are fully insured.

Insurance isn't something that should be left to chance and I agree again with Makum there is some merit in the idea of setting up your own site insurance 'fund'.

[guru]

How would you make owners take out block insurance then? Unless there is a law saying it is compulsory how can you force this?
By the way I don't live in an apartment, so don't personally have to worry about this but there are apartments on our complex.

Just a thought BW but although your property is not a problem what about your communal facilities? What if one of your pools sank after an earth tremor or something? How are your communal facilities insured?

[Rosehillgirl]

Hi,

Thanks to all of the people who have replied-some really useful stuff.

I won't bore you to death with all the detail but we feel we have been very badly let down by the insurance company and the management company.

We've ended up paying £300+ to fix our neighbours roof terrace which leaked (an understatement!!) into our lounge. We've only had the apartment around nine months-although it was built 7/8 years ago.

Our neighbour has had some personal problems and can't go out to the TRNC although they, like us, have paid out insurance premiums.

I shall look at the details-if we can change insurer we may try Istikbank as suggested.

I don't mind paying but what's the point if you get no cover?

Rosie

[Rosehillgirl]

Sorry.

It's IKTISAT BANK!!

Thank you Ailsa.

Rosie

[guru]

Rosie I have sent you a PM.

[TheSaints]

It is that time of the year i.e. time to renew my house insurance policy so having reviewed the terms and conditions of the policy I decided to get quotes from other companies.
I have asked each insurance company the same question and not one has given me a straight answer.

I live in a block of 6 apartments if the apartment above me and the apartment below me does not have any insurance what will happen if the apartment above has a serious flood that water damages my apartment? or if the apartment below has a fire or has structural damage that damages my apartment? what if only 2 of the six apartments have buildings insurance but the other 4 don't will the insurance company pay out or are we just throwing money away?


Can't get an answer from any insurance company on what the legal implications would be up to now.....

[ozankoys]

Firstly I do not understand why you have picked up a 4 year old thread but in answer to your question have you tried Turgud Insurance who sell Zurich policies?
Basically if you insure your apartment for say £50,000 in the event of total loss they would pay you that sum, with a partial loss they would pay accordingly