Home insurance -permanent WFH

[WTF0ver]

DH and I are both WFH just now but he works from home permanently. He works for a company (not running his own business) but works from home rather than being office based. He just moved here from overseas earlier this year and this is our first house together so I've never had to deal with this before.

What should I select on home insurance to show this as I've just read that you need to tell them if you or your partner works from home (outside of pandemic times). It has "clerical use only" if you "occasionally work from home but he does it all the time? Should it be that or "other business use?" Thanks

I would just ring your insurance or ring around and ask what the rules are for working permanently from home. You can just ask for advice without giving your name or insurance number, if you are worried.

The insurance company needs to be more clear in its questioning, and probably update to reflect that going forwards there's going to be a lot more people doing a lot more office work at home.

Sometimes there is an explaining box to click near the questions, but what a person does and the amount of time he does it for is not the same thing.

Most people would take 'clerical use only' to mean office based work involving a person sitting at a computer/desk, which could be very occasionally or full time. Might also be worth looking at the questions they ask about when a property is occupied because if he works at home, you can say that the property is usually occupied in the daytime, whereas if he went out to work, you would have to say the property is unoccupied in the daytime, so higher risk of burglary as burglars know that many houses are empty in the daytime when people go out to work, or at least they used to be.

Other business use would be when a person does non clerical work at their home, for example home hairdressing where people come to their house to have their hair cut, or a carpentry business where they have tools installed in an outbuilding and make furniture or something?

The risks here are different if you have clients visiting your property or equipment that would be very expensive to replace and/or would need to be supplied quickly to prevent loss of earnings.

Thanks everyone. I'm just looking for quotes just now haven't bought it yet. None of them seem to have much information that would pertain to our situation so I might need to enquire further. Good idea to put occupied in the daytime.

One of the websites is also asking for the date I purchased the property, am assuming they mean the date my offer was accepted or is it the day of completion? It's not clear at all. It also gives you an option to put "I haven't bought the property yet" not sure if this relates to new builds?!

Thanks.

Ring a broker, much easier than online. The date of completion is the date you bought it but most insurers don't need such minute details. Office use from home is not a problem for most insurers. They often will cover your office equipment under the policy too.

I think they only ask if you’re running a business from your home, for which even if wfh all the time I would say no, as I can theoretically do it from anywhere.

Just need to sort out buildings insurance first, can get contents once we're in. Thanks everyone.