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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Julia Kollewe

‘We can see into the other room’: insurers face surge in subsidence claims

A large crack in Melissa's house, with a pencil sticking out of it
A crack in Melissa's 1901 home in Walthamstow, north London, is big enough to hold a pencil. Photograph: Handout

“We’ve got one wall with an absolutely huge diagonal crack, through which we can see through to the other room; you could easily put your fingers in it and chunks of plaster are falling off,” says Henry Biggs, 49, from Stroud in Gloucestershire.

He and his partner started noticing cracks in their family home in June 2025, a few months after buying it, and filed an insurance claim for subsidence that was accepted by their insurer, Admiral, in the spring. Monitoring devices were only recently fitted, about a year after they first submitted the claim, and they have no idea when the damage might start to be repaired.

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