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hootnholler
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# Posted: 10 Mar 2018 12:36am
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Has anyone on here built your own small cabin without central heat and air? If so, have you been able to secure insurance for your cabin? I know some older cabins were "grandfathered in" but we are having difficulty finding a company that will insure our small place unless we install central heat and air.
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Rickant
Member
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# Posted: 10 Mar 2018 06:03am
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I guess it depends where you are located. In eastern Ontario, my experience has been that it doesn't matter if your cabin has a heat source or not. If it doesn't have a heat source it is usually considered three season. In that case it is harder to find responsible rates but not impossible. One reason is that they feel nobody will be at the cabin frequently enough and that raises the risk. The major companies like Belair and so on hate them, and often will refuse to insure or make it stupid expensive for basic insurance. I had two properties lined up to buy and had quotes for both of them, neither had heat sources. But basic insurance through a regular insurance company that mostly does urban work would have been 3k. Many companies also have smaller subsidiary companies to deal with higher risk properties but I found they were only marginally better. We were able to search around and by asking locals found companies that were more familiar with the area. Our current place has a wood stove but is on an island and that was a challenge as well. Cooperators is ok, wawaneshe(sp?) and others that focus on rural and cottage properties seem more flexible.
My suggestion is find a local or nearby town, they will know of an insurance rep that is familiar in dealing with properties in your area...
Not sure if that helps.
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Steve_S
Member
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# Posted: 10 Mar 2018 10:31am
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@OP not knowing where you are all I would suggest, is look into local insurance brokers and farm / rural providers in the local town(s) to your property. Do not expect anyone from an Urban Containment Zone to know, understand or even care the little rural guy, it just does not fit their neat little set of check boxes.
I had to change companies from an Urban Focussed (Economical Insurance Co) to a coop insurance to cover our property & vehicles and it actually saved quite a bit on premiums too.
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SCSJeff
Member
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# Posted: 10 Mar 2018 05:41pm
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Yes, we had a hard time finding insurance too... Our Insurance company for our home residence would not insure the cabin until we had running water installed. I could only find one company that would insure it during the building process and then they dropped me when the wood stove was installed (said I didn't have enough clearance... yada yada yada)
Once the contruction was mostly done and we had running water, my regular insurance company wouldn't insure it when I said the primary heat was a wood stove and the secondary was a wall mount direct vent propane furnace. So I told them, fine... The primary heat is the propane furnace  Now, we're good...
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hootnholler
Member
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# Posted: 10 Mar 2018 05:47pm
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Thanks. I'm in north Mississippi. All the local insurance companies said no to the cabin. We aren't complete with the inside construction but it would give such peace of mind to have it insured. I will ask some neighbors out where our cabin is a couple of counties over. Maybe that will help. Insurance companies want our money but wow the stipulations they impose!
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RiverCabin
Member
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# Posted: 13 Mar 2018 02:29pm - Edited by: RiverCabin
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Every insurance company just laughed at me. Having frontage on a river is not conducive to reasonable insurance rates. My agent said, "at least you don't have wood heat".
The one quote I was able to get was enough that seven to ten years of premiums could rebuild the cabin from the ground up.
Had my cabin not been on water, I could have insured it under my farm policy as a "shed". Depending on your homeowner policy that may be something to consider.
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hootnholler
Member
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# Posted: 13 Mar 2018 07:16pm
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We might look into putting in one of those all in one heat and air units. I think I will ask the insurance companies if that's considered "central h and a". Lots of motels have them so maybe that would work. They make a small one that doesn't take up much room.
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Houska
Member
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# Posted: 21 Jun 2019 10:12am
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Thanks for this, this thread has been useful for us (1 year later...) to get insurance for our small build in Eastern Ontario. Cooperators came through for us; our home insco and several other agents did not.
For those in similar situations, esp. in Ontario, a few hints:
1. If you have several small structures, pick one, with the most standard construction style, as the "secondary dwelling". Insure the others as "detached accessory structures", which may require increasing the detached structure coverage as a special rider but better than having a nonstandard, non-underwritable primary structure.
2. There will be a minimum amount of coverage needed for the policy. Ask what that is before specifying what coverage limit you want. If you ask for less, your policy may ping back and forth for days in underwriting hell.
3. Carefully go over coverages and decide what is worthwhile and what isn't. For instance, "enhanced water coverage" may sound attractive but in our case is irrelevant.
4. Curiously, if you're off-grid and generate your own power with solar (as we do - only 100W), you still need a special rider, at least right now with Cooperators.
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snobdds
Member
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# Posted: 21 Jun 2019 11:42am
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All I had to have was a 100 amp panel for wiring and two sources of heat, wood and propane. I don't even use the propane, but it's required.
Having our local county fire district sign off on our cabin having defensible space helped too...
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Steve_S
Member
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# Posted: 21 Jun 2019 02:36pm
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Just been talking with Cooperators and geez, a tad sticky but not unworkable. Got some raised eyebrows in regards to my place but so what.
Funny thing though, they suggested Flood Insurance ! OK, I am approximately 1300 feet above sea level, on top of a Ridge (1000 feet up) overlooking a valley below. Flood Insurance ? Ummm DUH ! Few other oddities and was told that's all automated in their system.... Lesson Learned, REVIEW CAREFULLY !
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jhbr55
Member
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# Posted: 21 Jun 2019 05:31pm - Edited by: jhbr55
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We have a 14x24 off grid, dry cabin our insurance co. treated it as a accessory structure to my main house.
I built a 12x12 shed there last year and that was added too.
My cabin is 1 1/2 hours north of main home in Minnesota.
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silverwaterlady
Member
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# Posted: 19 Mar 2020 10:48am
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Yes. Got one being totally off grid. Much higher rates. Before you commit to a policy read the entire document.
You will find that if your cabin is vacant for a certain time period coverage will be denied should anything happen.
You will need to hire someone to check on your cabin every certain amount of days in our case it’s 30 days.
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silverwaterlady
Member
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# Posted: 19 Mar 2020 10:50am
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BTW no wood heat allowed. No coverage with it.
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Nobadays
Member
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# Posted: 19 Mar 2020 11:45am
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We were able to get good coverage through American Modern Ins. Quite reasonable really. We pay about $450/year on a cabin valued at $150k. We are over an hour from the nearest fire department. They never sent an inspector out either, just asked for multiple pictures. We did need 2 heating sources, they listed propane as our primary and wood as secondary even though we told the agent over the phone that wood was our primary. I'm guessing they did it that way to meet their requirements.
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Irrigation Guy
Member
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# Posted: 19 Mar 2020 01:19pm
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Quoting: Nobadays We were able to get good coverage through American Modern Ins. Quite reasonable really. We pay about $450/year on a cabin valued at $150k. We are over an hour from the nearest fire department. They never sent an inspector out either, just asked for multiple pictures. We did need 2 heating sources, they listed propane as our primary and wood as secondary even though we told the agent over the phone that wood was our primary. I'm guessing they did it that way to meet their requirements. Your reply
I recently signed with them too. They said they would send an inspector out so I told them to give my phone number to the inspector so I could tell them how to get in the gate. They never called but instead just asked for pictures. I have propane heat and am on grid although I have no certificate of occupancy but it was was no issue.
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FishHog
Member
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# Posted: 19 Mar 2020 01:28pm
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we couldn't get anyone to cover just the cottage property. But when a new vehicle caused us to shop around we threw everything we own in the pot and the cottage wasn't even questioned. Ended up with cooperators. Its remote, wood and propane heat, solar and there were no questions asked.
This is in Ontario.
Might be worth shopping for everything you insure at once as opposed to trying to find a company to cover one higher risk item.
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LittleDummerBoy
Member
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# Posted: 19 Mar 2020 01:33pm
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I have a rider on my homeowner policy for 'Other Property.' I declared the value (about $5,000 replacement), and they charge me about $100 a year.
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