Should you get home insurance and how much do you pay?

[ncob]

FTB, new home-owner. Seems like theres endless costs. Erring towards getting home insurance but have almost nothing of value at the moment (need to buy furniture etc, currently just have odd bits donated by friends/family to get by until I furnish the place). I guess I should just get buildings insurance? (and not contents)

£19 a month for 3 bed house (2 adults and 2 kids) buildings and contents

I’ve always had contents insurance even when I was a skint 20 something, ended up getting burgled in my 20s and insurance paid out new for old which was good, upgraded laptop etc, thanks dumb criminals 😆

My buildings & contents insurance including accidental damage for both was £251 for a 3 bed terrace, south east, with 0 no claims discount as it’s our first house.

Perhaps we didn’t need contents cover, but once I started adding up all the stuff we had (even stupid things like clothes, kids toys, easily replaceable things like hair straighteners etc) it came to an eye watering amount that I couldn’t find all at once to replace it in the event of a house fire etc.

How much are your quotes coming out at?

I buy contents insurance because of the risk of fire or flood and having to replace almost everything. Also someone could break in and do lots of damage even if you don't have lots of valuable items to take. I have accidental damage but am quite unlikely to ever claim on that unless it was something significant and expensive.

If you have a mortgage buildings insurance is usually a condition.

Building insurance to a certain value is a condition of our mortgage so you need to check your offer as we had to provide our solicitor with proof of our policy.

For contents, we once made a claim for flooding through our roof which cost us £250 excess for around £750 of repair and redecorating work. We then paid really high premiums for several years afterwards, which cost us far more than the value of the work in the long run. So we now have a high voluntary excess to keep the cost of insurance low, and view it as a safeguard we would only claim if an absolute nuclear situation like a huge flood or fire happened.

We don't bother with paying extra for accidental cover for the reasons above.

We don't have expensive phones, jewellery or bikes so don't pay extra there either.

We don't bother with pipe track and chase now after it was useless when we had leak under our floorboards as it didn't cover anything and due to an error by the customer service assistant we even ended up having to arrange our own emergency plumber (refunded by the insurance after we complained).

We do pay for legal cover and have sought advice about a boundary issue before. I think it also covers any legal claim for visitors to your home if they're accidentally injured so worth getting if you plan to do lots of renovations and have contractors in

Always get building insurance as minimum- its almost certainly a condition if your mortgage.
Contents is up to you but dont underestimate cost of replacing carpets/ flooring etc

Don't skimp on insurance. It's the one thing you absolutely have to have and I'd choose it over a TV package for example. A few years back, while I was on the school run, my water softener caused a massive flood in my house in the space of maybe 45 mins. I came back to find the entire ground floor wet and water gushing out of the machine. Trying to turn off the stuck cockstop took forever. It ended up being around £20k of damage as all the ground floor flooring had to come up and be replaced. They also had to replace my kitchen. I had an industrial dehumidifier for a fortnight running 24/7 (and the costs of that). Every day I emptied a bucket of water out of it. If I'd not been insured I would have been screwed. It cost a fortune. I had contractors in for 3 weeks. Honestly, insure your home.

I pay about £10pm for contents
Buildings insurance included in my maintenance fees

Buildings is essential - we pay £350 for a large 5 bed house.

Contents is optional depending on what you have got, we pay £140 for about £100k of cover.

Make sure you have legal expenses included in one of the policies.

10 years ago a tradesperson made a mistake in our house which caused massive damage. We had to move out temporarily and the cost of the total claim for our insurer to fix the house and replace our contents plus pay for accommodation was almost £100,000. There were added costs because they sued the tradesperson, plus one of our neighbours was affected and they claimed on their insurance who then came to our insurers and there was a legal row between them.

The stress of all of this was immense, it was just the worst thing ever, but I cannot imagine how I would have coped without the insurers to pay for everything / sort out the legal stuff.

You need both for the reasons everyone has told you. It's just the cost of owning a home.

You'll probably never need it but if you need ot and dont have it you will be devastated. Noone thinks it will happen to them but theft, fire, water damage etc happen to people every day.

Get a quote. You get insurance for an amount - so if you say your stuff is worth X, then that is what it is insured for.

As an ex claims manager I once had to deal with someone who's house burnt to the ground. They only had buildings insurance with us. No contents cover. All their clothes, documents, keys, laptops, phones were lost.

Even a small fire will cause smoke damage so your furniture, clothes etc may need professional cleaning.

Have you already moved in?

Do you have a mortgage?

As pp said, having building insurance is a condition of every mortgage I've ever had, and compulsory from exchange.

Contents is optional, really depends on your attitude to risk.

One of my neighbours house was struck by lightning and there was a huge fire. What didn't get burned was destroyed by water damage, they had to replace everything and we're out of their home for 16 months until it was rebuilt/decorated. £25 a month I think is a very small price to pay.

Couldn’t imagine only getting building. If there’s a serious fire you have to re do all your carpets tiles decorating kitchen bathroom fittings furniture all your clothes literally every possession you own. That could be £100k

Also please tell me you haven’t already moved in without this?! What if you have a fire tonight!!!

My buildings and contents was about £220 , renewed in April . That’s on Churchills top policy for a large 4 bed detached in the SE .

a few years ago when I used to switch insurers regularly, I checked my contents insurance when there were riots in London to see what was covered - only to find it had lapsed, I was horrified.

I also (a few years later) had a huge claim because of flood damage from the apartment upstairs. No major issues with getting it settled, but there was some hassle between what was contents and what was buildings insurance (as its a leasehold apartment, buildings is arranged centrally by the managing agent.)

If I hadn't had contents insurance, I do wonder whether the buildings insurance would have been more difficult on what was/wasn't covered.

the usual criteria is if it's fitted, it's buildings, the to and fro-ing was mostly over electric curtain tracks.

@ncob

Get quotes. Buildings insurance is absolutely vital; adding contents may add little. Our modern 3-bed house, reasonable area, reasonably new with traditional contents - nothing luxurious [!] costs just over £100 per year at present

Insurance is only worth having if you need to claim on it.

I had a water pipe burst and needed about 13k worth of buildings and contents replaced. The buildings covered the ceiling and decoration, but contents covered things like floorings, sofa etc.

I've had buildings and contents insurance for about 35 years. I pay about £500 a year, ans made maybe 3 claims during that time which amount to about what I've paid in premiums - so I'm even stevens.

Have you completed the purchase of the house? You need to have building insurance from exchange because you are liable for costs from that moment. It’s like car insurance, it’s not an optional nice to have.

Buildings insurance is the cost of something happens to your house to rebuild it, you will still owe the amount on your mortgage. You will still be paying your mortgage so where would you find the funds to rent a new place or rebuild your home? It covers you for flood and fire but it also covers you if someone drunkenly drives into your front room, a tree falls on your roof, the property is subject to subsidence.

Contents does push up the premium but I would argue it’s also essential. It’s not about the quality of those things but it’s if you have to replace those all in one go. So if your home had a fire, the fire might be relatively well contained to the back of the house but you’ll likely still have smoke and water damage throughout. You’ll be paying for a new kitchen to be put in, buying new plates, new pans, new washing machine, new fridge, new towels, new bedding, replacing your wardrobe, replacing your couch, your desk, the beds, the curtains, rugs, new flooring. You’ll be replacing your pictures on the wall. You might be replacing a bike, depending on where it is stored, your lawnmower. Even things you wouldn’t think of like the ironing board and iron. You’ve been given some stuff because people have those to hand but people won’t have an entire house and wardrobe to hand. If you need to buy these new, how much would it cost you to replace everything in your house?

We pay around £200per year for buildings and contents. We include outbuildings for theft from shed, lawnmower and tools etc also accidental damage in the home but we don't have expensive bikes to cover or cover for away from home.

Like you, we don't have overly expensive items but it does really add up when you claim.

For example, our first claim was a hot water leak from our washing machine, must have been a mouse nibble through the pipe. Not only all the carpets were ruined but also the wallpaper was steamed off due to hot water leak.

When we were burgled, it was probably only £5k claim due to cheap ish items but it was a lot of items gone in one go that needed to be replaced.

Of course you need buildings and contents insurance. If you have a mortgage you will have to take out buildings insurance, remember if you have neighbours if their house goes up in smoke/floods/whatever then yours could also be damaged, and if that happens then your belongings could also be damaged or ruined. I get it that you might never make a claim ,but if the worst happens....! And be honest in your dealings with the insurance company as failure to be honest might invalidate any claim.

About £300 for Lloyds premium insurance for 4 bed detached house, I prefer to pay a bit more and have everything covered, we also added high out of the home cover and have 4 expensive bikes to include, often cheaper insurance is quite basic.

I pay less than £4 a week for £50k cover on contents with accidental damage & freezer cover. It gives me peace of mind.