BC (Canada) Home insurance questions.

[Twalt87]

To anyone living in bc. I have a few questions.

I'm about to install my woodstove and am wondering a few things before I go ahead with it.

What insurance companies do you all use?
How many cords is considered primary heat?
How many of you actually claim it ad primary heat Vs lying about it?
How much do your rates go up when claiming secondary or primary heat?

 

[begreen]

BC is a large province with varied weather and temps. Where in BC are you?

The primary heating system is the one that would be listed on tax records, sale documents, and to the bank. Wood heating is more of a lifestyle choice. Most banks and insurance companies require a primary heating system which will be operable when you are away, injured or sick, etc.. They need to know that something is keeping the pipes from freezing.

In the US, insurance requirements for wood stoves are all over the map. It depends on the underwriter. Some companies want detailed information on the product, installation, permitting and inspection and others just want to have it listed.

 

[John Ackerly]

I just had to switch insurance companies for a house in New Hampshire that I rent with my brothers. Its much harder to find a company to insure a rental house that has a wood stove. Rates did not go up at all, I don't think, and we were lucky to have good insurance broker look around a find the company. Since its a rental, we decided to build in the cost of a couple cords of wood and annual chimney sweep into the rent. That way, we can order wood early in the year, and know that the renter will be using dry wood - and then to chimney sweep can tell us if it looks like the renter was burning it relatively well.

 

[burningfire]

To anyone living in bc. I have a few questions.

I'm about to install my woodstove and am wondering a few things before I go ahead with it.

What insurance companies do you all use?
How many cords is considered primary heat?
How many of you actually claim it ad primary heat Vs lying about it?
How much do your rates go up when claiming secondary or primary heat?

Hey.

I'm from BC. I didn't know all the answers to your question so I phoned my insurance broker this afternoon to get some answers for you.

We're using Optimum West.

We're insured to burn up to four cords of wood a year as a secondary heat source.

We truly do supplement our furnace. I work from home and we usually have a fire going from when we get up until a small re-load before bed. The natural gas furnace is set to come on at about 16C and it does run every night. If we're away for the day or long periods we just let the fire go out and the furnace take over. In a new house (1 year old) our gas bill is usually under $30.00 a month during the coldest part of the winter. During the shoulder season it jumps to $60.00 when it's just easier to let the furnace handle things instead of building a fire. We only use gas for cooking and the furnace as our hot water is electric.

The increase in insurance cost is about 10% which works out to about $150.00 for us.

Hope this helps