Brignall Archer

Home insurance is one of those things that come around year after year, seemingly without need. Sometimes it can seem like an unnecessary expense, but the constant risk of damage to the home from fire, burglary, floods or other disasters makes it one expense that most people make sure they pay.

Home insurance combines different personal protections, including the likes of protection against building damage, contents damage and the loss of use of your home. So if you must live elsewhere for a period of time, the insurance will cover the costs.

With global warming, the worsening weather conditions can lead to damage to buildings from flooding and cold weather. Harsh winters can result in burst pipes, broken heating or a whole host of other disasters that are not particularly nice to experience during bitterly cold weather. Home insurance can smooth over some of these painful blips, covering the cost and ensuring faster fixes. It is important to notice that some policies do not cover flood damage or other natural disasters, but special insurance can be bought to cover these.

Cheap home insurance can be found through insurance brokers or comparison websites on the internet.

Before taking out an insurance policy, it is important to undergo a thorough process of contents insurance comparison in order to ensure that you get the best deal. There are several contents insurance comparison websites out there, but it is also important to check out some review sites to ensure that the company offering the best home insurance prices isn’t doing so by skimping on essential services.

Which?

Which? – the long-running consumer advice magazine – also has a website dedicated to reviews. The page on home insurance includes a table comparing 29 different insurance providers and assessing them by a customer satisfaction score as well as reviewers’ assessment buildings and contents insurance policies offered by insurers. The top-rated insurers, based on their contents insurance score, were NFU Mutual and Hiscox, each with an 83% score.

The Review Centre

The Review Centre is a website that compares a wide range of different products based on customer reviews. Each review includes a star rating, on a scale of one to five. There is no separate section for contents insurance, but it is covered under the home insurance provider reviews. The website features star ratings and customer reviews, which makes it easier to get a meaningful assessment of the providers being reviewed.

Fair Investment Company

The Fair Investment Company is an independent UK savings and investment specialist. It offers reviews of major contents insurance providers on the company website, but the “reviews” tend to be lists of features, allowing customers to quickly access the information provided.

We all hope never to suffer the misery of a house fire, flooding or burglary.  However, should the worst happen, buildings and home insurance will lessen the stress of such an event.

Another way of reducing stress at such a time is to have a complete inventory of the possessions in your home.  Insurers will ask you what has been taken or damaged.  Why rely on memory, when you can easily refer to your inventory?  If your home has fire or flood damage, it can be difficult to recall how things were before.  Even after burglaries, there will be times months after the event when you go to use a certain item and find it gone.

The best advice from home insurance providers such as Policy Expert is to compile an inventory of your belongings in a calm and methodical way and to store copies of it in various places away from the home, such as with relatives, in a bank deposit box, or online.

Photographic inventories are also useful.  Walk through every room in your home and photograph the contents.  Don’t forget items concealed behind cupboard doors and remember to list belongings in your loft, shed and the cupboard under the stairs.  It is surprising how many things get overlooked.  Essential items like laundry, bedding, cutlery and crockery are often forgotten.  However, if you have to replace them all in one go, it can be expensive.

Hopefully, you will never need to refer to a household inventory in making a claim, but, if the worst happens, it will be one less thing to worry about.

Listed as follows are a few legalities that you should be aware of when obtaining and holding landlord insurance:

When you are initially seeking insurance and filling in the proposal, or when you renew your policy, you have a ‘duty of disclosure’ to honestly answer any question your insurers may ask.  It is essential that you complete this section of the proposal accurately because the insurer can refuse a claim if you do not disclose information that is relevant to the case.  If you are unsure whether information is relevant, consider whether or not it would affect the risk element involved in covering you or the property.  If the answer is yes, then the information needs to be disclosed.  In the event circumstances change whilst the policy is in force, it is a good idea to let the insurance company know of these changes.

‘Utmost good faith’ is the foundation on which every insurance contract is formed.  This means that both you and the insurer have an obligation to be fair and honest with each other, and the duty over-rides any other clause in the insurance policy.

Insurance companies will have the right to refuse to provide you with landlord insurance cover.  If this happens, it is useful to know the reasons why, and you have the right to ask why they have refused to insure you.

If you bear these legalities in mind when taking out a policy for your property, you will be in good stead for the future.

Buying cheap home insurance can be a complicated affair.  There are many things to take into account to ensure you are properly covered.  With so many insurance deals out there, here is a basic guide to what you should expect from your policy.

For many homeowners, the minimum cover required by mortgage lenders comes in the form of buildings insurance.  These policies are aimed to give you protection from unexpected damage to your property, in cases where the cause of the damage is entirely out of your hands.  When buying buildings insurance, it is best to find a policy that will help pay for the damage resulting from freak events such as flooding, storm damage (including lightning), subsidence, vandalism or other malicious damage, damage to interior decorations, and damage resulting from vehicles or aircraft.  This should apply to all fixtures within your property boundaries, though outhouses, garages, and greenhouses may be extra.

If you are also looking to insure your personal belongings inside your house, such as furniture and appliances then you need to buy contents insurance.  It is reasonable to expect a contents insurance package to cover the cost of broken windows, having new locks installed, office/work equipment stored in the house, the contents of your freezer, and losses on stolen credit cards.

The amounts paid for such damages vary depending on the insurance company and premium and it is always important to be clear about what is and is not covered in your home.

Suing and compensation seem to have become synonymous with the way of life in our current society. Claims for negligence against property owners by tenants have caused many landlords to review and adjust their thoughts on landlord insurance. With liability becoming an increasing cause for concern, it seems that this is wise action to take.

In an ideal world we would not have to worry about whether or not a person is taking the necessary precautions to prevent any harm coming their way while occupying rented property. Another problem that arises from rentals is that unforeseen structural degradation can cause tenants or others to suffer serious accidents. It is these freak accidents that can cause more damage to your pocket than anything else that your tenants might do to your property.

While you might not always be able to prevent accidents happening at your property, it is important that you are covered for this possibility so that you are not left in financial ruin if you are unable to prove negligence on your tenant’s part. Preventing your investment from becoming a heavy financial loss should always be one of your aims when thinking about acquiring landlord insurance.

Finding the right type of landlord insurance policy that covers you from the possible ruin of a liability claim is a very good idea. As you will not be residing in the property yourself and do not know all that could befall those who are, then prevention of financial loss through responsible action makes more sense.

Though your home insurance policy covers damage to your home, it may not include any protection for your mortgage.  While you have a mortgage on your home, most lenders require you to have home insurance.  The main reason is to prevent you from leaving your home permanently due to damages by natural causes.  However, some companies actually include mortgage payment protection as well.

Included

Check with your home insurance provider to see if there is any coverage for your mortgage.  This includes handling the remainder of a mortgage if you decide not to rebuild your home.  It may also include coverage for living expenses and payments while you wait for your home to be repaired.

Separate Policy

For policies that do not include mortgage protection, you can either add on a plan or obtain Mortgage Payment Protection Insurance, or MPPI, from a separate insurer.  This coverage protects you even if you can’t pay the mortgage due to illness, injury or unemployment.  For the best protection, get a policy that covers all possibilities, not just obscure problems.

MPPI plans cover mortgage payments at the very least.  You can also get a policy that includes coverage for your home insurance payments as well, since home insurance is likely to be required if you have a mortgage.

Sometimes, this type of policy is included when you get your mortgage.  In most cases, this actually costs you more.  For more coverage at a better rate, either get a separate policy or see if your insurance provider offers this as an add-on policy.

Something many consumers never think about is flood insurance.  Most home insurance policies do not include flood damage as part of the original policy.  Floods can occur even if you don’t think you live in a low lying area.  Flood coverage should be considered when you buy home insurance.  Many home insurance quotes include the option of including flood coverage.

Vicinity to Water

If you live in any low lying area near streams, rivers, lakes or any other body of water, flooding is a real possibility.  Heavy rains cause flash flooding, which can damage basements and the first floor of your home.  If you are new to the area, talk to neighbours about flooding and whether they have ever experienced flooding in their own homes.

Keep in mind that if you live near streams or rivers, flooding can be caused by heavy rains in other areas.  If you live downstream from areas that regularly receive large amounts of rain, flooding is still very possible in your area.

What Does Flood Insurance Include?

Flood insurance provides full coverage for water and structural damage due to flooding.  From replacing flooring to replacing your entire home, flood insurance is essentially home insurance, but it only covers flood damage.  Include flood insurance as part of your home insurance policy if you live in any flood prone areas.  Even if you live in a blackout area, where most carriers refuse to provide flood coverage, check with other insurers.  You can get flood coverage as a separate insurance policy.

There are a number of specially designed insurance products for property owners who are landlords.  Below are listed the three main landlord insurance products.

Buildings Insurance

When buying buildings insurance, ensure that the policy covers the re-building cost and not the market value of the property.  This is because sometimes the re-building value will be much higher than the building’s market value, particularly in the currently depressed economy.  The main dangers which your buildings insurance must cover are fire, explosion, lightening, storms or floods, malicious damage, oil or gas leaks and theft.

Contents Insurance

In the UK most rented properties are either partially or fully furnished.  Therefore a contents insurance policy which includes landlord’s liability cover is useful.  A contents policy typically includes carpets, curtains, light fittings and any appliances.  The landlord’s liability element provides protection for the landlord in case a tenant files a claim for an injury caused by the contents of the house, such as faulty light fittings or a loose carpet.

Emergency Cover

This is very useful if you are living away from your rented property.  Either the landlord or the tenant can call a 24-hour helpline and get emergency assistance for electricity failure, loss of house keys, plumbing, leaking from the roof or gutters and broken doors or windows.  The policy will provide replacement parts and labour up to the prearranged amount.

It should be noted that some insurance companies will not provide one or all of these types of coverage if you have tenants who are students, multiple individuals sharing the rent or those who get state benefits, as all of them fall into the High Risk Tenant category.

Unlike most other countries in the EU, the United Kingdom is one of the few that does not mandate that flood insurance cover is included in all home insurance policies.  This problem has come to the fore in recent years with several incidents of catastrophic flooding, and the problem with insurance cover for floods is due to get worse.

The government’s spending review will have an impact on many aspects of our lives, and one of those is flood defences.  The government spends a substantial amount of money on defending towns and cities against flood waters, a fact acknowledged by insurers who are more likely to be willing to insure homes if there is substantial flood protection in the area.

However, with the government likely to spend less on flood defences insurers may now reconsider whether they can offer flood insurance in all the areas they currently do.  In fact it may happen that some home owners will be entirely unable to get cover against flood damage if insurers determine that it is not worth taking the risk to insure certain properties against flooding.

For now the best home owners can do is to remain attentive when it comes to the fine print of their insurance policies.  Insurers need to notify their customers if there will be a change in the home insurance coverage of a particular policy, but these notifications often go unread.  It is crucial that those living in flood-prone areas check the status of flood protection under a policy whether they are taking out a new home insurance policy, already have a policy or plan on renewing their policy.