Timber frame home insurance

Can I get insurance if I have a timber framed house?

Yes, if you have a timber framed house you can still get home insurance. There’re just a few things you need to bear in mind:

• If you have an older timber framed home, it might be more tricky to find cover for it as it’s likely to be classed as a non-standard home. This means some insurers may refuse to offer you cover, as they’ll see your house as too risky to insure. You might need to go through a specialist insurer and get non-standard home insurance instead.
• If you have a newer timber framed home, it’s normally fairly straightforward to find cover and you should just be able to take out a normal home insurance policy. This is because newer builds have to be built to modern building standards, and so insurers deem them less risky to insure than older ones.

What if I have an older timber frame home?

Older timber frame homes can be especially pricey to insure as they tend to have features that put them at a higher risk of things like fire, or that are expensive to repair.

These can include:

• Wattle and daub panelling which usually needs specialist skills to fix.
• Thatched rooves which not only carry a higher risk of fire, but can be expensive to repair or replace.
• Listed building status which usually means specialist construction methods and materials will be needed for repairs.
• Lack of foundations which can be the case with older timber frame homes, putting them at greater risk of landslip, heave and subsidence.

Will timber frame home insurance cover my log cabin?

Log cabins can sometimes be classed as timber framed homes.

You should be able to find timber framed home insurance for your log cabin as long as it has a permanent address. If it doesn’t, you’ll need non-standard home insurance.

While they may require specialist cover, a key advantage of mobile log cabins is that they don’t require planning permission.

If you’re renting out your log cabin as a holiday home, you should also consider guest house insurance.

How do I get a timber frame home insurance quote?

You’ll normally need to give slightly more detail for a timber framed home insurance quote than you would to get one for standard home insurance.

Here’s what we’ll need to know:

• Whether your house has wattle and daub paneling
• Whether it has a thatched roof
• Whether it has foundations
• How old it is
• Whether it’s a listed building
• What state of repair it’s in
• Whether there are any signs of subsidence