Month-to-month insurance for residential properties undergoing cosmetic upgrades before sale. If you’re renovating to sell, as long as the home remains intended and suitable for living in, with no major concerns, this cover is designed for you.
Get a quote in seconds and cover online in minutes with New Zealand’s easiest house insurance.
What is a flip house?
A flip is a residential building that you’ve purchased with the intention of selling in the near future. They can be:
- A home you are purchasing to cosmetically renovate (not major alterations)
- Unoccupied new build waiting to be sold
Doing Renovation work to spruce up your Flip?
We provide cover for the residential home while you’re doing renovation works, but it’s important to know when we can’t cover your home.
What houses CAN initio cover?
Homes that need a bit of a freshen up to enhance their market appeal. Cover is provided while Cosmetic Renovations are being undertaken. Work that does not involve structural alterations, weather tightness issues, major work or anything that requires a building consent.
Cosmetic renovation examples
- Painting
- Installing new carpet
- Removing a non-load bearing wall
- Doing up a bathroom (e.g new hand-basin, shower)
What houses CAN'T initio cover?
We can’t provide cover for houses that have major work required, are undergoing structural or water-tightness renovations, or where a building consent is required. In these situations, you’ll usually need a separate contract works insurance policy that also includes cover for the existing structure.
Renovation examples we can’t cover –
- Re-roofing, re-cladding or changing joinery
- Adding onto the property
- Removing a load bearing wall or beam
- Where a building consent is required
- Demolition
If your property is having any of the above work done, you’ll generally need contract works insurance. We’ve partnered with Builtin who provide this type of cover. With Builtin, you may also need to arrange insurance for the existing structure alongside the building works. Like initio, Builtin is underwritten by IAG.
We also can’t cover buildings or houses that are:
- Not self-contained or liveable (missing essential facilities for cooking, sleeping, and bathroom use) or not fit for habitation
- Not intended to be a home (for example, a showhome, or a property used mainly for non-residential purposes)
Trade Property condition - applying to this type of policy
The standard policy excess is set at $5,000
If your house is fitted with an active monitored alarm or security system, the standard excess reduces to $1,000 for break-in or burglary.
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Online cover, in an instant
It’s online and it’s easy. Purchase cover with month-to-month payments so you don’t need to fork out a full year’s premium up front.
When your house is sold, simply login and stop the cover.
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The best investors in the business use Initio
Initio is proud to support members of the New Zealand Property Investors Federation and My Properties.
House flip Insurance Features
Comprehensive House Insurance
Cover up to your chosen Replacement Sum Insured.
All the important including like Fire, Earthquake and Floods
Contents
Staged furniture
Cover from $20,000 - $60,000
Major Malicious Damage
Malicious Fire & Explosion covered up to
the full replacement sum insured
Burglary
Cover for break-in losses.
$5,000 excess, reducing to $1,000 if monitored alarm installed
Owners Legal Liability
$2 million of cover
Includes Bodily Injury and Defence Costs
Natural Disaster
Includes EQC Cover
Plus top up to the replacement sum insured
Retaining Walls
Included up to $25,000
Accidental Damage
What this cover is designed for.
Cover up to your chosen replacement sum insured
Policy Wording Document
Download policy wording for full details of cover
Common questions about House flip Insurance
Go to our quote calculator, enter the details of your property and select the property description as a Trade Property
You’ll have a quote in just seconds, which you can insure in a few quick minutes.
You’ll need to choose a replacement sum insured that’s enough to fully demolish and rebuild your house to its existing size (using today’s building costs).
If you’re unsure what the rebuild costs would be, we recommend using the Cordell SumSure Calculator to help get an estimate.
See here for our full guide on choosing your sum insured.
For trade properties you will need to purchase a monthly policy on a debit or credit card.
We then automatically charge the card each month on the renewal date, and send you email confirmations each tome we do this.
Once the property is sold, you can log in to your initio dashboard and cancel the policy. A refund will be paid for the unused portion of the premium and the monthly payments will stop.
For more information on our monthly insurance payment method please see here.
Yes, the general rule of thumb is that there’s cover for cosmetic renovations. This is things like a kitchen refit, carpet replacement, painting, installing new bathrooms.
If you are doing major structural alterations that involve changes to the structural elements of the house you will not have cover. For construction related work a contract works insurance policy is required.
If you are unsure if the work you are doing is structural or cosmetic, please contact us.
The standard excess for Trade Property claims is $5,000.
For burglary, break-in or attempted break-in claims this excess will reduce to $1,000 if at the time of the incident you have a monitored, audible alarm operating at the property.
Yes, you automatically receive $20,000 of contents cover and this can include staged furniture if the property is being advertised for sale.
You can choose to increase this contents cover amount up to a maximum of $60,000.
Simply login to your initio dashboard and select the cancel cover option on the right hand side of the policy.
We will automatically pay you a proportionate refund for the remaining unused days of the policy cover. All future monthly payments are then stopped.
No. If your intent is to demolish the current buildings on the property, then we are unable to provide cover.
Yes, the Flip policy is a suitable product for homes currently on the market for sale, cover also includes contents left for staging.