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Understanding Household Insurance

The chances are that your home will be the most expensive thing you have ever bought, the most valuable thing you own and the focal point of your life. Should anything happen to it, you would want the right household insurance to help get your life back on track.

As with most types of insurance policies, there are different types of cover available. Companies will offer deals based on your home and the value of the contents inside. You can get insurance to cover the structure of the house itself, the contents inside it, or both.

Generally, the policy you receive will be able to cover the cost of any items stolen from your house, any repairs that have to be done to the building (as a result of an insured peril) and any rebuilding work.

Home and contents insurance falls into two main categories, as we have touched upon, home insurance, or buildings insurance, and contents insurance. These can be sold separately or together, but it is worth noting that if they are separate policies it will be easier to make a claim if they are with the same provider.

Buildings insurance covers your house, as well as any outbuildings you might have such as sheds, greenhouses etc. Most policies will cover basic forms of damage to the house; this may be damage caused by fire, flooding or subsidence. Depending on the particular policy, it may also cover damage from oil leaks, vehicles or animals, or forces of nature such as lightning strikes and earthquakes.

The other main type of cover is contents insurance, covering the valuables inside your home. While many policies will cover accidental damage to your possessions, the general use for this policy is to cover theft. These policies typically include things like furniture, jewellery, electrical items and clothes.

Some policies may have limits on the total sum of the valuables in your home. More often than not, very expensive or valuable individual pieces will have to be notified.

Due to these stipulations, companies may offer very specific insurance for these purposes. So, there may be a policy that has no limit on the value of the contents inside, or a policy that specialises in valuable items or antiques. You will understandably have to pay a higher amount in the first place for these policies but the cover you receive will be far more extensive.

This type of policy will also save you a great deal of time when compared with ‘sum insured’ policies, which provide cover for your contents, as well as the building, but only up to the level you specify. This means that you have to total up your valuation of everything you want to insure, and then get the respective cover based on this valuation. You may only have cover of up to £10,000, so you won't be able to claim any costs greater than that amount.

It is important to find the specific deal that is tailored towards you. It is not uncommon for insurance providers to mix around the options available and design a specific policy based on your demands. This may be concerning bigger choices such as contents versus buildings, or both, or it may be to do with incredibly specific details and possible extras that they can provide.

A provider may also offer a 24 hour emergency service that covers any labour or parts that need to be repaired or replaced. Some policies regarding contents insurance will also supply cover for items that you own elsewhere in the world; an item of value which gets stolen while you are on holiday, for example. In this case the provider will take the position that it is your contents that has been stolen, regardless of whether it was actually in your home at the time of the theft or not.

All things considered, there is clearly a lot at stake where a person’s home is concerned. Everything that has ever meant anything to you is potentially all under the same roof and if something happens to that it can be devastating. Finding the right cover is therefore very important. Insurance represents peace of mind and a valuable safety net should something go wrong; thus it is a matter of finding the policy that suits you.