What does Home Insurance Cover?

Home Insurance covers damage to or loss of the structure and permanent fittings in your house.

In this context “permanent fittings” means anything that is permanently fixed to the structure of the house such as built-in wardrobes, built in-kitchen units (but not the electrical and gas appliances), toilets, baths and washbasins, central heating system and decorations.

Your Contents Insurance covers everything else that can be removed. The test is: if it can reasonably moved to a new home then it’s “contents”. If it can’t then it’s covered by your Home Insurance.

Home Insurance can cover your garage, sheds, greenhouse but not swimming pools, paths, fences, gates and drives.

Damage and loss to your home can occur in many ways. The ones that will spring to mind are probably fire, storms, flood, and explosions. But don’t forget that a thief will almost certainly damage your house whilst gaining entry or might cause damage to your doors or decorations whilst rifling your home. They may even try to remove the oddest of items - yes your toilet could even be on their shopping list!

If you have a leak, it will be your responsibility to have the leak repaired, but the structural damage caused by the leak will be covered by your Home Insurance. Often the cost of repairing a leak will be tiny compared with the cost of repairing the damage it causes. The biggest problem occurs in the winter if the owners go away and a burst develops because of the cold. If the burst is in the roof ceilings will come down and the whole house will flood. This happened to one person we know who returned to find a stream of ice cascading from their front door. The house took two months to repair.

Falling trees, crashing cars, an aircraft landing on your house (or something falling from one), rampaging horses, earthquakes and lightening? Yes if your house is damaged you’re covered.

What about an attack by vandals (insurance companies call that “malicious persons”) or a riot? Yes the structure of your home is insured.

Are you covered for subsidence, landslip or land heave? Yes, and these can cause major damage to your house. You are insured against these perils but your insurer will want to know if your house is in an area known to be at risk from them. If you are, then these higher risks will be reflected in your premium.

Your Home Insurance cover allows you to claim for the cost of repairs or even the complete reconstruction of the property if it is damaged or made uninhabitable. If your home is rendered uninhabitable, most good policies will also allow you to claim for alternative accommodation during the repairs works.

Please specifically check out what your proposed policy includes.
Conditions and levels of cover do vary between insurance companies.

Frequently Asked Questions related to the above topic.
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