Defective Concrete Blocks Affected Homeowners FAQs

No, you should renew your home insurance policy even if your home has defective concrete blocks. While our home insurance policies exclude claims arising from faulty workmanship, defective design and the use of defective materials, they still provide insurance for other things.   

With Allianz home insurance your policy offers benefits such as home emergency assistance as well as cover for damage caused by insured perils such as fire, storm, flood, theft etc. as standard. There are also several optional extras you can add to your policy to tailor it to your specific needs. 

Over the last number of years, inflation in the wider economy has increased the price of goods and services and this included the cost to repair or rebuild a property.

The Society of Chartered Surveyors Annual Guide to calculating house rebuilding costs for insurance purposes shows that rebuilding costs were up 12% nationally in 2023 following a 21% increase the previous year. 

To assist in reducing the chance of customers being underinsured, which would impact on any claims payment in the future, Allianz have applied indexation to our home insurance policies which is why you have seen your building sums insured increase. For more information on underinsurance visit our Home Insurance FAQs.

A building contractor generally has insurance policies in place to deal with damage to the contract works during the construction phase and for legal liability arising from their construction activities. Legal liabilities are generally covered by Employers and Public/Product Liability policies. However there is generally an exclusion in respect of loss or damage to or the costs of removing, repairing or replacing any product, structure or contract works caused by any defect therein or unsuitability for its purpose. 

You should contact us as soon as you become aware of the presence of defective material in your property.

You should advise us and let us know when the property is to be demolished. It may make sense to delete buildings cover from your household insurance policy at the point of demolition. 

We would advise that you contact your insurance company in good time to enable you to assess what your options are. Some insurance companies do not provide cover for properties undergoing construction, so it may be necessary to explore options directly with insurance companies or via a broker.

*We don't insure houses that are still under construction for new business.

While our home insurance policies exclude claims arising from faulty workmanship, defective design and the use of defective materials, they still provide insurance for other things.   

With Allianz home insurance your policy offers benefits such as home emergency assistance as well as covering you for damage caused by insured perils such as fire, storm, theft etc. as standard. There are also several optional extras you can add to your policy to tailor it to your specific needs. 

Unfortunately, as our home insurance policies exclude claims arising from faulty workmanship, defective design and the use of defective materials there is no indemnity that we can offer for these costs under our home insurance product.