“As I wrote above for the confused review, if your house is unusual (in my case Grade 2 listed) the insurance one thinks one has got through the comparison website - may well not cover you if the worst happens, and your house burns to the ground.
Though this may well apply to most other insurers as well - you need to ring the insurer, in this case the Halifax, to ask a lot of questions and clarify a lot of core things, before being reasonably certain that, if one does lose everything, that ones insurer, in this case the Halifax (underwritten by Lloyds) will actually pay out.
In my case, my house was almost completely constructed in 2006, which is what I naively put as the date of my house. Yet the original foundations, and part of the 4 stone walls, originate to the 19th century.
Having actually believed that the origins of my barn were around 1680, like the original farm house next door, it turned out that, for some unjustifiable and inexplicable reason, the Halifax only insure back to 1714 so, at one point it looked like my insurance was invalid,(which I only found out by being particularly diligent).
I then found out, via the listed buildings website, that my barn was probably later than the farm house next door, and was thought to be 19th century - but that was the only place I could get any notion of a date.
So I became insured again - but I had to pay another £83 on top of the original £210 quote - to remain insured.
To be fair to the Halifax - the rating may well have been poor for many others as well, given my particular circumstances.
But I still feel very unhappy that it's so easy for main stream companies to take ones money, but potentially wriggle out of paying out, if the worst happens, as would have happened in my case, if I had't been unusually (even unreasonably) questioning.”
