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What is Home Insurance?
What is building insurance?
What does building insurance cover?
What doesn’t building insurance cover?
What is contents insurance?
What doesn’t contents insurance cover?
Home insurance is designed to protect your primary investment in life: your home and all its contents. Natural and man made disasters can cause tremendous amounts of damage and severely reduce the value locked into your home and possessions. Losing a lifetime of accumulated property is devastating and, without insurance, almost impossible to recover from. Top
Buying a building is an expensive investment of time and resources. Building insurance is a clever way of protecting your investment from damage to its structure or fixtures and fittings. Building insurance may also cover outside structures such as sheds and garages or even walls and fences that surround your property.
Your mortgage provider may require you to take out insurance on the property but you do not have to buy it from them.
They will also probably insist that the building insurance cover the cost of rebuilding if necessary. You can either contact a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors to prepare a professional Rebuilding Cost Assessment for insurance purposes or, following guidelines, try to work it out for yourself. Top
Your building insurance policy should cover you for: fire, floods, vandalism, riots, earthquakes, subsidence, impact by vehicles, falling objects from an aircraft, storms and falling trees or branches. Some insurers may cover you for water pipes that connect to your house but most will considered that your responsibility.
Exact coverage varies on insurer and location and it is always important to read the policy documentation. Top
Building insurance generally doesn’t cover damage that results from personal home improvement, such as do it yourself (DIY) projects.
You will also most likely not be covered for damage caused by: war, terrorism, radioactive waste, pressure waves from aircraft and pollution. As always though, it is important to read the policy documentation for specifics. Top
Unlike building insurance, contents insurance is always optional as the property in question is yours. No security system is perfect and there is always the possibility of valuable property being stolen from homes. Burglars aren’t a household’s only worry, so too are accidents and natural disasters. Floods and fires, among others, can destroy books, clothes, furniture, appliances and any number of personal items making a recovery very expensive. Households can’t afford to have a laid back attitude when items of sentimental and economical value are lost to them. Content insurance is vital and it is important to value the contents of your house appropriately.
There are two forms of contents insurance: bedroom-rated and sum insured. For a bedroom-rated policy you are charged a premium based on the amount of bedrooms in your home. Sum insured policies require you to work out the total value of all your possessions and the cost of replacing them. Top
Contents insurance covers anything within, but not part of, your home. This includes possessions like clothes, furniture, rugs, and computers. There is a grey area when it comes to items that can be used outside of the home such as bicycles, laptops, credit cards and traveling baggage.
Typically you will be covered for damages caused by fire, floods, vandalism and theft.
You can get additional accidental coverage which will cover you for mistakes like paint spills or damage caused by pets. Top
Similarly to building insurance, you are not covered for DIY projects or deliberate acts caused by you, smoking and wear and tear.
Some insurers will remove protection from certain environmental damages, like flooding, if you live in an area that suffers from severe flooding or subsidence. Always ask your insurer what locale conditions will affect your premium price and coverage.
For any items that you would take abroad you should not assume your home contents insurance will cover it and it is advisable to look into travel insurance.
Policies vary from each other, it is advisable to shop around and read each policy carefully. Top
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