Home insurance for over 50s

To work out how much cover you need from your home insurance policy, start by calculating how much it would cost to rebuild your property from the ground up, not its market value. This includes labour, materials, professional fees and debris removal.

For over 50s in particular, it’s worth checking that your rebuild cost is up to date, as long-owned properties may have been extended or altered over the years, increasing the true cost of rebuilding.

You’ll also need to estimate the total value of your contents and how much it would cost to replace everything like-for-like.

Over time, many people accumulate higher-value items such as jewellery, antiques or collectibles, which may need to be listed separately to ensure they’re fully covered. Reviewing your sums regularly helps avoid long-term underinsurance, which can reduce payouts if you ever need to make a claim.

If you live in and own your home, you will generally need two types of home insurance:

• Buildings insurance – which offers financial protection if there is damage to the structure of your home, usually including the fixtures and fittings

• Contents insurance – which is designed to pay out if your belongings are lost or damaged while inside your home

You can buy these separately or via a combined home insurance policy. Combined cover is often the cheapest option if you need both buildings and contents insurance, because providers tend to offer discounts when buying both together.

If you live in a rental property – for example in a retirement village – you may only need to take out contents insurance because buildings insurance is already included in the annual service charges.

As with most home insurance policies, you can choose to add a range of extra types of cover to your over 50s policy, although you will usually have to pay for them.

Popular extras include:

• Away from home cover: 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

• Accidental damage cover: This includes damage caused by pets or issues such as spilling wine on your sofa

• Legal protection cover: This covers the cost of legal representation if you become embroiled in a dispute such as a personal injury case

• Bicycle cover: 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

If you own a caravan, you may also be able to add cover protecting these items to your home insurance for over 50s policy. Some insurers even offer certain extras, such as home emergency cover, for free when you first take out home insurance for over 50s – so when shopping around, it’s worth double checking exactly what is included.

When comparing over 50s home insurance, it’s important to look beyond price and focus on how well a policy meets your needs.

Key things to compare include cover limits for buildings and contents, whether valuables are covered as standard, and how flexible the policy is if your circumstances change.

Claims handling is also important so check customer reviews and whether the insurer offers UK-based support or a straightforward claims process.

MoneySuperMarket helps by showing you a range of policies that match your requirements, making it easier to compare cover levels, optional extras and overall value in one place. This allows you to choose a policy that not only fits your budget but also provides reliable protection and peace of mind.