What does home insurance cover?

Key takeaways

• Home insurance provides financial protection for your home and belongings against risks like fire, flood, storm damage, and burglary

• There are two types of home insurance: buildings insurance and contents insurance

• Additional cover options include accidental damage, legal protection, home emergency, garden, bicycle cover, and ‘away-from-home’ cover for your possessions

What does home insurance cover?

Home insurance covers your home and personal possessions against various risks.

These risks include:

• Fire damage

• Flood damage

• Storm damage

• Burglary and vandalism

• Escape of water from burst pipes

• Damage from subsidence or heave

What does home insurance not cover?

‘Exclusions’ are things that home insurance won’t cover. Typical home insurance exclusions include:

• Wear and tear

• Lack of maintenance

• Deliberate damage

• Damage caused by pets

• Mechanical or electrical breakdown of appliances

• Theft by guests

• Incidents where you have been negligent

What are the different types of home insurance?

There are two main types of home insurance:

• buildings insurance

• contents insurance

Buildings insurance covers the structure of your home, and permanent fixtures and fittings (such as fitted bathrooms and kitchens).

Contents insurance covers your possessions and belongings, such as clothes, furniture, electrical items and sports equipment – basically everything you would take with you if you moved house.

Which type of home insurance do I need?

No type of home insurance is mandatory by law, but your mortgage lender may insist you buy buildings insurance as a condition of the mortgage.

• If you own a house, you’ll want both buildings and contents insurance.

• If you own a leasehold flat in a block of flats, your buildings insurance will normally be arranged by the freeholder or bought as a joint policy with the other flat owners. You’ll need your own contents insurance.

• If you rent, your landlord is responsible for buildings insurance, so you just need contents insurance.

There are also other types of home insurance that apply to specific situations:

Landlord insurance:This cover protects landlords from risks associated with owning a rental property. It usually includes buildings insurance and any of the landlord’s possessions in the rental property (i.e. furniture). Some policies also include cover for missed rent payments.

Home emergency cover: This type of insurance covers the costs of labour, parts and repairs if you have heating, plumbing or drainage issues. You can buy home emergency cover as an add-on to your home insurance, or as a separate standalone policy.

Tenants’ insurance: Renters or tenants insurance is a type of contents insurance, designed to cover a tenant’s possessions in a rented home.

Students’ insurance: This type of insurance covers the possessions you keep in your room in private student accommodation or university halls of residence.

What additional cover can I add to my home insurance?

There are various extras you can add on to home insurance policies. These include:

• accidental damage insurance

• legal protection insurance

• home emergency insurance

• garden insurance

• bicycle insurance

• high-value items insurance

You may also want to take out personal possessions insurance, which covers your belongings when they're outside of your home. This type of cover would protect you if your mobile phone was stolen at a restaurant, for example.

How can I reduce the cost of home insurance?

• Shop around and compare different policies and premiums

• Pay your home insurance premium annually rather than monthly

• Combine buildings and contents insurance in one policy - this is often cheaper than taking out two separate policies

• Build up a no-claims bonus can make your premiums cheaper in the future – to the extent it might not be worth claiming for smaller amounts

• Set a higher excess (the amount you pay towards any claim)

• Improve your home security