Home Insurance

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What is Home Insurance?

Home Insurance describes two main types of cover, which can either be bought as standalone policies or combined within a single policy from the same insurer:

Buildings Cover: offers protection for the permanent fixtures in your home such as the roof, walls, floors and fittings. It is not a legal requirement, however it is a condition of every mortgage offer that buildings insurance is in place, regardless of whether you’re buying or remortgaging a property.
Contents Cover: offers protection against the loss of or damage to the contents of your home, which includes items such as your furniture, electrical goods, clothing, and jewellery. A policy could also include protection for items you might take outside the home such as mobile phones, jewellery, and bikes. You will be covered against events such as theft and fire, but you can also add the option of insuring against damaged you may have caused yourself by accident.

What would you do if your home was fully or partly destroyed due to fire, flood, or other hazard? Having buildings insurance in place could help you to quickly recover or rebuild your home from such a loss.

If your home is mortgaged, the lender will require you to have buildings insurance in place as a condition of that mortgage and of course building insurance can be just as important even if your home isn’t mortgaged.

Contents Insurance

Think about the value of possessions in your home – from the expensive gadgets, to the white goods and even the clothes you own. Some things have sentimental value and are not easily replaced, however a contents insurance policy could allow you the ability to replace all your other possessions for instance if they were damaged in a fire, or stolen.

Additional Cover Options

The insurers we arrange your home insurance can also allow you to choose additional benefits to add onto your policy if you wish:

Home Emergency Cover: provides some protection for a number of household emergencies including the cost of a contractor’s emergency call-out, labour charges and parts and materials. Household emergencies could include events such as, failure of the primary heating system, failures to plumbing or drainage, lost keys or external door/window/lock failure, a gas leak, electricity supply failure amongst other types of events.
Legal Protection Cover: designed to help you through difficult and often stressful legal situations by providing you with financial support for solicitors and barristers’ fees and a 24-hour legal advice Helpline. Cover is provided in areas such as Employment Disputes, Identity Theft, Probate and infringement of Property and Consumer rights.
Personal Possessions Cover: If you want to insure everyday items you take outside like mobile phones, watches, jewellery, laptops or pedal cycles. The amount of cover would be up to a certain limit depending on the type of item.

How does Home Insurance work?

Home insurance provides cover to your building and/or contents for a twelve month period assuming you keep up to date with your monthly premiums or do not cancel it within this period.

During the period of cover, should you suffer a loss that is covered by your home insurance policy, you would be able to make a claim for this to the insurer. When you make a claim and depending on what the loss is, there would be an excess to pay; this is a monetary amount that you would either need to pay or have deducted from a claim should the insurer agree to compensate you for the loss you have suffered. The insurer may offer you the choice of a monetary amount for your loss or organise to repair or replace the item(s) that have been damaged or stolen.

A few weeks prior to your cover ending, your existing insurer may contact you to provide you with a renewal quote, therefore providing you with the option of continuing cover with them for another year, although this may be at a new price.

If you currently have a home insurance policy you would like to review or feel that you need one, please contact us or request a call back.

How much does Home Insurance cost?

The cost of Home Insurance depends on a number of things, however the main things an insurer will consider are:

Where your home is located
When your property was built and what materials it is built from
Whether your property has had a history of subsidence or flooding
Your past claims history (no claims discounts can be offered to those who haven’t had to claim on their current and previous home insurance policies for a year or longer)