There are two types of home insurance:

Contents insurance

This covers the cost of replacing all your possessions, such as furniture, electrical items, clothing, jewellery and other belongings. You might find it helpful to work out the value of the contents of each room in turn before adding them together for your grand total. When you run a quotation, we’ll ask you about any particularly valuable items (those worth more than £1,000), along with any laptops and bicycles.

Buildings insurance

This covers your bricks and mortar, and would pay for repairs or rebuilding costs if, for example, your property were damaged or destroyed by a fire or storm. The amount of buildings cover you need is based on how much it would cost to rebuild your property, rather than its market value. When you run a quote, we’ll suggest a re-build amount using data about your address provided by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

What information do I need to run a building and contents insurance quote?

There are a few details you’ll need to provide to get your quote…

• Your address, the type of property and roughly when it was built
• How many rooms the property has
• Whether there are trees taller than 10 metres within 5 metres of the property
• What percentage of your roof is flat, if any
• When you bought the property
• Who lives there, and when are people typically at home
• What sort of locks are on the doors and windows
• How much would it cost to rebuild (we’ll suggest a figure based on your postcode)
• How much it would cost to replace your contents

What kind of insurance should I get?

If you own your home, then you will need both buildings and contents insurance. If you have a mortgage, your bank or building society will require you to have buildings insurance.

If you’re a renting your property, then buildings cover will be the responsibility of your landlord, but you will need contents cover to protect your possessions.

How can I save on my home insurance?

Don’t be tempted to scrimp on cover to reduce your premiums. There are other ways you can keep costs down which won’t leave you financially exposed.

When buying cover, remember that taking out combined building and contents cover with the same insurer can be cheaper than buying separate policies.

You could consider increasing your voluntary excess to reduce your premium. This is the part of any insurance claim you have to pay yourself.

Try to pay for your cover in a lump sum up-front if you can. If you pay in monthly instalments instead, you’ll usually have to pay interest on these payments.  

And remember that if you can avoid making a claim, you’ll get lower premiums by building up a no claims bonus.

Level of service

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.