Question: Due to the presence of cladding on our townhouses, our insurance company has declined our renewal and other insurance companies are refusing to insurance. How do we organise insurance?
We are a class 1 building of 2 storey with a party wall between the 10 townhouses. We have a fire engineer’s report stating there is 9% ACP cladding on the building. Our owners corporation has told us our insurance company has declined our insurance renewal and other insurance companies are refusing to insurance us as well. How do we organise insurance?
Answer: Seek quotes from the wider market.
Some insurers will decline to offer quotes if there is cladding at your premises. In such instances, the most important thing to do is seek quotes from the wider market to ensure the new insurer’s quotes are most competitive. If you have a broker, they should be able to assist you with this.
This post appears in the July 2022 edition of The VIC Strata Magazine.
Tyrone Shandiman
Strata Insurance Solutions
E: tshandiman@iaa.net.au
P: 1300 554 165
This information is of a general nature only and neither represents nor is intended to be personal advice on any particular matter. Shandit Pty Ltd T/as Strata Insurance Solutions strongly suggests that no person should act specifically on the basis of the information in this document, but should obtain appropriate professional advice based on their own personal circumstances. Shandit Pty Ltd T/As Strata Insurance Solutions is a Corporate Authorised Representative (No. 404246) of Insurance Advisenent Australia AFSL No 240549, ABN 15 003 886 687.
Hi we are have a class 1 building 2 storey with party wall 5 x building s 10 townhouses we have a fire enginners report thieir is 9 % ACP cladding our body corporate has said insurance Company has delined our renewal as well as other insurance are now refusing insurance to us ,
Hi
We have responded to your comment in the article above.
Interesting to see how Victoria is working with buildings to fix this issue.
Any input as to what is occurring in SA?
The entire cladding issue was caused only by the lack of proper care from the Governments – allowing to use flammable materials for building construction. Those cladding materials were as flammable 10 years ago as they are now, so nothing happened to make them more dangerous now. Owners of such properties shall be fully protected financially in case the cladding had approval at the time of construction and suddenly is not approved now.
The whole question about cladding products on buildings is not the amount of coverage on the façade of such cladding product or the design composition or location of it but the actual composition of the cladding product itself.
If the product contains flammable materials within its structure/fabrication enclosure, such as any number of poly prefaced products as polyethelene, polyurethane and polystyrene and the like, the product is most likely capable of producing toxic fumes if it burns. This is the real safety issue. The insurance issue to take account of the risk factor in insuring dangerous building products can be eliminated if such products were banned from use in buildings, whether single story of multiple storied. If buildings contain such cladding products , they should be removed such as for asbestos. The removal scheme is laudable. No insurance limit can account for loss of life due to the use of these types of toxic products.