Buildings Insurance Explained
Buildings insurance covers the structure of your home – as a building, so usually excludes most decorating and internal repairs that might be required. Your cover should provide for the cost of completely rebuilding your home.
Factors included in buildings insurance are:
- Rebuilding the structure of your home
- Repairing your roof, walls and windows
- Replacing fitted kitchens, bathrooms and WCs
- Sometimes policies include driveways, garages and external fencing
The type of incidents covered by buildings insurance usually include:
- Fire damage, including smoke and water damage
- Vehicle collisions with your home
- Acts of vandalism or criminal damage
- Damage caused by trees or other falling debris
- Natural disasters, including flooding and storms
- Subsidence and damage to your property foundations
What Are Sum Insured And Bedroom Rated Buildings Insurance?
Buildings insurance has two different types of cover; these are called sum insured, and bedroom rated.
Sum insured covers the cost of rebuilding your home from scratch, including professional fees and clearance works. Indexed policies help to estimate the cost to rebuild over time.
Bedroom rated means that the cost of a rebuild insured for is calculated against the number of bedrooms in your home. This policy type can either be positive or negative, since it avoids underinsuring, but can be more expensive than necessary.
Contents Insurance Explained
Contents insurance covers the belongings within your home if they are stolen, damaged or destroyed.
The type of contents you insure can include:
- Furniture
- Jewellery
- TVs, computers and electrical equipment
- Kitchen appliances
- Valuable possessions such as antiques
Contents insurance can cover a fixed value, allow you to replace items like for like, and may require disclosures of possessions over a certain value.
Building And Contents Insurance Explained
Buildings and contents insurance combines both types of policy, to protect your home itself and your possessions within it.
Why Should I Take Out Home Insurance?
Most of us would not be able to cover the cost of rebuilding our homes should they be destroyed – for example, by a fire. Therefore, home insurance is vital to protecting you against the financial impact of losing your home.
Most mortgage lenders require any applicant to have a buildings insurance policy in place as a bare minimum, so insurance is a requisite to secure lending against your home.
Is Home Insurance Necessary If I Do Not Have A Mortgage?
If you own your home outright, then you will not be required to hold home insurance by a mortgage provider. However, it is still worth considering since if your home becomes irreparably damaged you will need to have some way of financing those costs.
Do I Need Insurance If I Lease or Rent My Home?
Whether a rental tenant needs their own insurance will depend on your lease with your landlord, and what cover they provide.
If your landlord provides building insurance as part of your lease, then you may need to only consider contents insurance. If you live in an apartment or flat, then you might be responsible for providing insurance for the parts of the property that you are legally responsible for.
Contents insurance is rarely a requirement, but is a valuable product to protect your most treasured belongings, and allow you to replace them should they ever be stolen or destroyed.
What Does Home Insurance Exclude?
What your policy covers will depend on the terms of your cover, so it is essential to understand exactly what you are covered for, and what is excluded.
Most buildings insurance policies do NOT cover for:
- Wear and tear
- Bad construction work or DIY
- Piping damaged by frost
- Pet damage
- Acts of God
Most contents insurance policies do NOT cover for:
- Undisclosed high-value possessions
- Equipment you use to work from home
- Damage caused by a sub-letting tenant
If in any doubt about what insurance you need, how much it should cost, and where to find the best cover for your home and belongings, give our expert insurance team a call. We scour the market for the very best deals and provide quotes tailored to your requirements.
