Been with Pedalcover for a few years but they can't cover us any more. Frustrating as I was trying to get it sorted nice and early but their renewal quote completely failed to mention a fairly ******* big change.
The problem is that Mrs NBT has a workroom in the attive where she makes curtains. It's more than just paperwork / clerical so their new underwriter won't have it - doesn't matter that we don't need / want cover for the business, the mere fact that the business is there means they cannot (will not) offer cover. I'm finding this with most insurers that I've called. Me WFH on the computer is not a problem, but running a business is out of the question. I even called a business insurance place at the suggestion of one of the insurers who were unable to help, to see if the business insurance place could help - but unless we want their business insurance it's not an option.
We can't be the only people in the country who WFH? How do other people get insurance in this case? Are they just being economical with the truth and hoping that it won't come back to bite them (spoiler - it will, insurance companies are very good at finding ways to not pay out)
I'm sure that SOMEONE on the forum must be an insurance broker, can you help? DMs welcome if you don't want to post up on the thread
I work in the Industry but in Life/Illness Insurance, some of our IFA's though are self employed and WFH permanently and they said to look at https://www.homeprotect.co.uk/
I had a good chat with my insurance co and they had to do some checking and eventually came back with an option that includes substantial working from home or some phrase like that, I explained my set up and they were happy it was covered. The only thing they weren't happy with was people coming to visit, which they don't for me. That's with Barclays, pretty reasonable bike cover too if they aren't super expensive.
I suspect most people just ignore it and hope for the best. I've added work use to my car insurance too. They include commuting, but not other work use by default. No extra cost but better it's on record
@nealglover thanks, they actually came up with a quote but i'm struggling to type my eyes are watering so hard. I might have to insure the bikes separately
Presumably your wife doesn't have business cover for her stock and equipment, such as they are?
Must be some sensible format for a combined option or linking home and business cover, lots of people do this.
I investigated the same issue about 10 years ago, I used to have a very small jewellery business with the pieces made in my shed. I could get separate ( still quite expensive) small business cover in that case because it wasn’t in the house, but the house insurers through the broker made it very clear that I couldn’t have clients anywhere on the premises or store any stock or materials in the house. I didn’t find anyone who would insure the house and business on the same policy, but I may not have tried hard enough.
NFU Mutual do wfh as a production based business. Or they certainly used to anyway. Think it covers businesses up to a turnover limit of £x. Can't remember but deffo worth a call to them.
If your business is bigger than that then I'm pretty sure they'd be able to provide something as they do big business stuff too (farms are basically a house with a business running from it).
FWIW businesses that are clerical only are usually ok to be covered by most insurers as long as there are no visitors to the premises. They aren't covering the business activities, or any business "items", what they are doing is widening the description of "domestic" use to include some business use.
When you start nailing stuff together in your shed / spare room, then you've got stock and tools etc to think about. A separate business cover would cover those, but it's going to cost a fair bit which is not great for your typical small business setup. Clients/visitors to the house also make things much more complicated.