10/14/2026
Get the insurance quote before you remove your conditions, not after. This is the step buyers skip most often and the one that has quietly killed the most deals I have watched.
Here is what happens. The inspection comes back fine. Financing is in place. Everybody relaxes. Then the insurance application goes in and the answer is either a decline, a surcharge that changes the monthly cost, or a requirement to replace something within thirty days of taking possession.
Insurers are asking harder questions than they were even three years ago. The roof and its age. What kind of electrical panel is in there. Whether there is a wood stove and whether it was installed to code with paperwork to prove it. The age of the plumbing. The claims history attached to the address, which follows the property and not the owner, and which you cannot see.
None of this is exotic and none of it is expensive to check. It is just that it sits outside the standard checklist, so it gets discovered at the one moment when you have no leverage left.
Call an insurance broker the same week you book the inspection. One phone call, and it either confirms what you already believe about the house or it tells you something worth knowing while you can still act on it.
If you are buying in Victoria this fall, put it on the list.
