I recently renewed my buildings and contents insurance for the third year with LV (I also have car and travel insurance with it). But when I checked the documents I noticed that a new statement had been added, saying: “Your house is not a listed building.” Our house is Grade II listed.

LV claimed they had never insured listed buildings, but had only put that sentence in the schedule since December 2013 – implying that I must have missed that detail when taking out the policy in June 2011 (when I was only asked about “the fabric” of my property).

Its response was to cancel the policy with immediate effect. My feeling is that they’ve moved the goalposts without telling anyone and – presumably – have put other customers into a difficult/very annoying situation.

I managed to find better cover for less but it was very stressful. Is this legal? This condition is not mentioned on my previous two schedules and I have no memory of ever being asked about it. VS, Cheltenham

Clearly it is important to get the right cover for a listed (and therefore historically important) property. Indeed, cover for listed buildings is considered to be a specialist type of insurance, so it is important to shop around.

Is what LV doing legal? We understand that it is, but unfortunately it is your word against LV’s. We contacted LV, which confirmed that in 2011 you obtained a home insurance quote, using moneysupermarket.com. At the time of completing the quote, the comparison site asked you to read a list of assumptions about the property and either confirm, or amend, each one accordingly. LV says you confirmed that all the assumptions were correct, including the fact that your property wasn’t a listed building.

When you received your latest insurance documents this year, they stated that your property was not listed as LV recently changed its customer letters to include more information.

Your call to tell it that your property was listed shows that you were not attempting to hide anything. LV says it was then unable to offer you home insurance because it doesn’t insure listed buildings.

But it does admit that it could have handled the situation better and given you more time to find cover, particularly as you were about to go on holiday.

It has apologised and offered £50 compensation, which is hardly generous. The most worrying aspect of this oversight is that you have been, technically, uninsured for three years, although LV tells us it would have paid out for any claim. The lesson is to always double-check the small print.

We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number