Insurance for renovation

Curlicue – there’s no hard and fast rule. A strata contents policy may have clauses that are specific to renovating, or it may not provide cover at all during renovation works. Some policies may continue to provide cover provided you live in the property throughout the duration of the works, but if you vacate, the policy may cease to cover you. So first-up contact your preferred insurer and find out precisely what their policies cover, and in the context of the next para. if you need anything additional.

Then you need to make absolutely sure that your prime contractor is properly licensed, that they hold the public liability and workers compensation insurance policies that you’ve mentioned, and assuming that they (and not you) are engaging subbies such as plumbers and electricians that those too are covered under those policies; if not then make sure that they have their own cover.

Then if you’re in NSW, you’ll need to provide all those details, together with a plan of your renovations and a work program to your Owners Corporation (or Strata Manager) and seek its consent in advance of any works commencing.

That’s particularly important if your renovations will involve common property areas such as the kitchen floor (e.g. new tiles?), any walls that are common with other units or external walls, and/or if any new plumbing or electrical works are within those walls.

Even if none of the above applies, your Owners Corporation will still need to have the details that I’ve mentioned so that issues including the storage and disposal of building materials, access to and the movement of people and materials around the Common Property, parking, and times of work (noise) may be addressed.

I think that insurance is a very personal choice. Of course the whole point of insurance is to prevent against unexpected situations which is why we make our customers take out content insurance when they put things in storage units with us. I think some renovation contractors will have their own form of coverage sometime too so best to check with the guy who is going to do work for you.

Cameron – would you mind explaining why Mel, Edward, and you continually dredge-up old posts and mostly contribute irrelevancies? Because it seems to me that your sole collective reason is to sneak-in a plug for your common business activity!  Whale.