Buildings insurance
Buildings insurance covers the physical structure of your home – the bricks and mortar – and any permanent fittings or fixtures (from your doors to your kitchen sink).
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Home insurance or house insurance protects your home and its contents if the unexpected happens. A home insurance policy helps cover the costs of any unavoidable harm to your home, like fire or flood damage, as well as replacing stolen valuables if you’re burgled. Home insurance provides reassurance.
Unlike car insurance, which you need to drive legally, home insurance isn’t a legal requirement for homeowners or renters. However, it provides peace of mind in case something goes wrong out of the blue.
If you’re taking out a mortgage, your lender will probably insist you get buildings insurance before they’ll loan you the money. If you’re a tenant, you’ll only need to cover your belongings – your landlord should look after the buildings cover.
While home insurance isn’t legally required in the same way as car insurance, it’s still important and helpful in protecting your home. There are policies designed for all types of occupants, including:
If you own your home outright, or are currently paying off a mortgage. You’ll be responsible for both the physical structure of your home and any belongings you have on the property
If you’re a private tenant in a rental property. You’ll only be responsible for your own belongings – you won’t need to take out buildings insurance as that will be up to your landlord
If you own a property and you’re renting it out. You’ll be legally responsible for the property’s condition, but will only need to cover the building and contents you provide
If you’re living in student accommodation, usually with other students. You might be covered by a parent or guardian’s home insurance policy, but this isn’t always the case
If you’re sharing a house or flat with other adults. Details about door locks and access points can affect premiums as shared households come with certain higher risks
If you own a holiday home that is otherwise unoccupied. You will likely need to take out specialised home insurance for properties that are empty for long periods of time
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There are two types of home insurance cover: buildings insurance and contents insurance. You can take each out separately or get both from the same company in a combined home insurance policy.
Buildings insurance covers the physical structure of your home – the bricks and mortar – and any permanent fittings or fixtures (from your doors to your kitchen sink).
Contents insurance or contents cover protects the possessions in your home (like your TV, and your sofa) against damage or theft – some policies cover your stuff while you’re out and about too.
You can take out your buildings and contents cover with the same insurer to keep things simple, but you should always compare quotes to ensure you’re getting the best deal.
The premiums you’ll pay for home insurance will depend on a range of factors, including your home, its structure and its contents, your location and your claims history. This is because these can all influence how likely you are to make a claim on your home insurance policy.
It will also depend on the policy you take out – if you buy contents and buildings insurance combined, you may be able to save money compared to getting them separately. In fact, between January and March 2023, a combined policy was on average around £29 cheaper a year than taking out separate policies
Cover type | Average annual premiums* |
|---|---|
Building and Contents | £216 |
Buildings | £162 |
Contents | £83 |
*MoneySuperMarket data collected between January and March 2023, accurate as of March 2023.
"Take the time to work out how much the contents of your house would cost to replace, totting up not just valuables such as jewellery and computers but also stuff like curtains, carpets and the contents of your shed and attic. If you do have to claim and your sum insured is too low, your insurer might not pay the full amount – or might refuse to pay out at all.
"
You may be able to reduce your home insurance premiums by doing the following:
You can usually get a no-claims discount if you’ve gone several years without making a claim
Paying for your insurance all in one go works out cheaper than paying monthly, so it’s worth doing if you can afford to
Asking for a higher excess tells insurers that you’re less likely to claim, so you get a lower premium
Protect your home with a burglar alarm, secure door and window locks, and a safe – especially if you live in a burglary hotspot
Unoccupied homes are at a higher risk of being burgled or damaged by fire or escaped water
Insulating your pipes reduces the risk of damage when they freeze and thaw in cold weather
Fitting smoke alarms around your home isn’t just common sense in safety terms, it can also lower your insurance premiums
Get quotes from a few different insurers – we work with over 55 companies to help you find the best deal for you
The specific level of cover depends on the particulars of your insurance policy. Many home insurance policies will offer similar types of protection, while most will also have certain exclusions.
Fire damage
Floods and storms
Burglary and vandalism
Burst pipes and escape of water
Subsidence and ground heave, also known as swelling
Wear and tear
Negligence
Lack of maintenance
Incorrectly supplied information
Unoccupied properties
When researching for home insurance, it’s worth looking at the extra cover you can add to your policy. Adding home emergency cover or bicycle cover to your home insurance can be cheaper than getting them separately.
Below are some of the common added extras to a home insurance policy.
You could run into legal issues if you own your own place, and the costs can be sky-high. This add-on covers most home-related legal costs, from conveyancing, inheritance and probate, to disputes with neighbours or tradespeople
Home insurance covers flooding and fire, but a home emergency cover includes extra protection against surprise bills. It covers callouts and parts for plumbing or heating issues – it’ll even cover you if you snap your key off in your lock
Standard contents insurance will protect your possessions inside your home, but not always when you’re out and about. ‘Away-from-home’ covers things like laptops or mobile phones for damage, theft and loss when you're on the go
Whether it’s red wine on the carpet or your little one’s marker pen masterpiece, accidents happen. Accidental damage cover protects your home from mishaps that a standard policy won’t cover – it can even help out if you make a costly DIY error or break a window
Whether you’re a serious cyclist or a committed commuter, it’s reassuring to know your wheels are protected. A bike insurance add-on covers theft (as long as you’ve locked your bike up somewhere sensible) and repairs if you have an accident
It may be included in your home insurance cover as standard, but if not, then this added extra can pay for the cost of repairing your boiler if it breaks down
Helps cover the costs of temporary accommodation if your property is left unhabitable following a flood, fire, subsidence or storm damage
Protects individual belongings, like cameras, phones or jewellery worth less than £1,000, if they get lost, stolen or damaged when you’re out of the house.
We’re here to help you protect the things that matter most
Pop in some details about your home and your personal belongings, and compare quotes in just a few minutes
We’ll search the market for the cheapest deals, and help you choose the cover that suits your needs
We’ll show you claims experience for policies, to help you choose the right home insurance policy for you
Each home is different, so standard home insurance might not be right for everyone. You might need a specialised home insurance policy if you’re looking to get cover for:
You can take out short term home insurance to cover a property for a few days, weeks or months
If you own a second home, you could benefit from a holiday home insurance policy
If you’re a tenant – so you rent your property from a landlord – you’ll still need to cover your own items with contents insurance
Listed buildings hold an extra significance and additional risks, so they normally require specialist home insurance
Leaving your home empty for an extended time presents certain risks, so you’ll need unoccupied home insurance to cover this
Thatched rooves are unique structures, with unique risks – which requires a particular type of home insurance
If you’re a student living away from home you may want to consider student’s home insurance to protect items like gadgets and clothes
If you’re working on renovations or building your home from scratch, you’ll still need self-build cover while the work is going on
If you’re a landlord it’s your legal responsibility to have landlord insurance in place.
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You might be wondering if we work with all the companies in the market, or if our commercial relationships with our partners might make us feature one company above another. We’ve got nothing to hide, and we want to give you clear answers when it comes to questions like these, so we’ve pulled together everything you need to know on this page.
We aim to show you home insurance quotes from as many insurance companies as possible, so that you can find the right policy for you.
Unfortunately, we can’t promise to show quotes from every insurance provider, because not all companies want to be included on comparison websites.
We won’t offer you advice or make a recommendation, but we will provide you with all the information you need to help you decide which is the right policy for you.
You can find out more about how we work here.
The average price paid by UK households for both their home buildings and contents insurance so far in 2022 fell to record lows according to the ABI’s Household Insurance Premium Tracker, published in May. The ABI’s Tracker is the only survey that looks at the price consumers pay for their cover, rather than the price they are quoted. The average price of insuring your home down 7% over the last year, with price of covering your contents down by 11%.
To calculate how much cover you need from your home insurance policy, you’ll need to account for:
How much it would cost to rebuild your property from the ground up
The total value of your home’s contents, and how much it would cost to replace every item
If you’re a tenant you’ll only need to take out a renters insurance policy, which will let you cover your personal belongings. Your landlord should have their own buildings cover in place, and while they may also have a contents policy this will only apply to items they’ve supplied for the property, such as furniture.
Listed buildings are properties of historical or architectural significance, and you’ll often need to take out a specialised listed building policy as many insurers don’t offer standard cover for these buildings.
Similarly, unusual properties, such as buildings made from non-standard materials, also aren’t usually covered by standard policies – so you’ll need to take out specialised cover. Any property that isn’t built from brick or stone, with a tiled or slate roof, is typically considered non-standard. This can include buildings that are timber-framed, steel-framed and prefabricated.
Yes, your credit score can affect the price you pay for home insurance, especially if you want to pay monthly rather than in a lump sum for the year. Insurance companies look at your credit history to know how much of a risk they’re taking with you and to come up with the appropriate rates. If you have a low credit score, you may end up paying more for your home insurance.
When we’re at home, our personal possessions are normally protected by home contents insurance but this doesn’t usually cover them when you’re out of the house. Different policies offer different cover but often you have to pay extra to cover possessions that you take out of the home, like jewellery or gadgets, for example. A personal possessions insurance policy covers your personal belongings against loss, damage, or theft when you take them out and about.
Calculating the rebuild cost of your home is a necessary part of getting a home insurance quote. The rebuild cost is the amount of money required to reconstruct your home from the foundations up, including labour and materials, if for example your property was damaged or destroyed in a fire or flood. Typically, the rebuild build cost is lower than the market value or sale price of your home, as it doesn’t include the value of the land your home is built on. A chartered surveyor can help you calculate the cost, or alternatively you could search for a rebuild calculator online.
If you're having any major building work done on your house, such as loft conversion or extension, you will need to let your house insurance provider know. Structural changes bring increased risks, with builders coming into and out of your home, building materials on site, and potentially parts of the property exposed to the elements. Your home insurance is also likely to go up if the work increases the cost of rebuilding your home. If you don’t tell your insurer your home is undergoing renovation, you may find that your policy is invalid in the event of a claim.
Some home insurance policies will cover water leaks, while others won’t. And even policies that include cover may exclude some elements of a claim related to a leak. You might not be covered for example if the leak is due to lack of maintenance, such as missing sealant or grout, or if you caused the leak and don’t have accidental damage cover. It's important to read the terms of your policy before you buy to ensure you know what you’re covered for.
A home with a history of subsidence is likely to be a lot more expensive to insure and you may find that insurers are hesitant to cover you at all.
Home insurance typically covers unoccupied property, for up to 60 days – and if anything happens outside this period you won’t be covered. An unoccupied home insurance policy covers you when your home is empty for longer than your standard policy will allow.
Home insurance is generally still available even if you live in an area with a high risk of flooding, thanks to the government-backed Flood Re reinsurance scheme. The Flood Re scheme applies to properties built before 2009.
There are two types of excess: compulsory excess and voluntary excess. Compulsory excess is the amount set by your insurer that you have to pay if you make a claim. You can't change this amount or choose not to pay it – it's part of your policy.
Voluntary excess allows you to choose the level of voluntary excess when buying or renewing your home insurance policy. It's the amount that you want to pay towards a claim. Choosing a higher voluntary excess could reduce your insurance premiums, but it also means you will have to pay more if you do have to claim.