Home Improvement Contractor - Licensed Contractors

What if I finished my basement without getting permits? I used quality contractors. How can I get insurance?

Home already insured, but I added basement without getting permits. It is professionally done by many of the same contractors who built my house originally. If I changed insurance companies now, had them do a wlk through, and my house burns down later. Will the new insurance company ask to see permits and/or original plans to my house in order to decide what they will pay for? Net/Net: What can I do now to make sure my house is insured fully, besides tearing down my basement drywall for inspection?

Public Comments

1. If it ain't permitted, it ain't there. Your contractors must have been stark raving mad to even consider doing a project like that without getting a permit. They probably have put their license at risk and may have committed a crime. I would hire a private inspector to look at the work and if he says it would pass muster go to your local permit office in full penitent mode and confess and do whatever needs to be done to make it right. If it doesn't demand that the original contractor come out and fix it. This is not something that you can hide forever.
2. your insurance company doesn't care about permits just tell them you did an add on and you want to up grade your insurance they will ask what the up grade is and look on the computer and give you an estimate
3. OK, a couple of things. The permit bit is irrelevant - insurance companies don't care. You can just call your agent, and tell them, hey, I finished my basement now, so the cost to finish it was XYZ dollars, I need to increase the coverage on my homeowners policy. That shouldn't be a problem. They might see plans, but you didn't actually add any space to the house - you only improved space that was already there. So it REALLY shouldn't matter. They will decide to pay, based on the cost to repair - or your policy limit, whichever is LESS. To make sure your house is insured fully, have a sitdown with your agent, and ask them to re-do a residential cost estimator to calculate the cost to rebuild your house, should something terrible happen. Also, one thing I ALWAYS recommend - take/borrow a camcorder, walk through the WHOLE HOUSE, open drawers & cabinets & closets, record serial numbers on the backs of high end electronics. Then you store that video OFF PREMISES. At your office, in your safety depost box, or give it to your agent to keep in your file. Then if the house burns down, you have something to use to help you build your inventory. Lastly - flood insurance. You know flood is NOT covered under your homeowners policy. And flood is NOT ONLY water coming up from the ocean, or river. It's ALSO water running downhill, in cases of heavy rain. It's ANY WATER that comes into your basement from outside - whether it's seepage, or a torrential rainstorm, or the next door neighbor's monster sized above ground pool collapses. You MIGHT want to discuss the pros and cons of flood insurance with your agent at the same time.