What is home insurance?
Home insurance can mean buildings insurance, contents insurance or both. Buildings insurance is often taken out with a mortgage to cover the cost of rebuilding your home should the worst happen. It generally covers you for damage to your home caused by fire, bad weather, natural disasters, damage caused by burglary or attempted burglary, man-made disasters like riots, explosions, vandalism. Coverage will differ between home insurers so it is important to check your policy documents.
Mortgage lenders can ask to see proof of buildings insurance as part of their mortgage offer so if you are a first time buyer about to buy a house or a buyer about to move properties, you should get a home insurance quote right away. The amount of buildings insurance you take out needs to cover the cost of replacing the building itself and all permanent fixtures and fittings inside it.
As well as the actual property, buildings insurance can include garages, sheds, driveways, outdoor hot-tubs (if you're lucky enough to have one), swimming pools, paths, walls and even hedges. Some companies don't necessarily offer coverage for all these items as standard individual policies do differ in what they include so remember to check the policy details to see what is covered. esure cover all of these items and should your home be damaged so badly that you need to stay elsewhere, esure will also pay for alternative accommodation. This type of peace of mind can really make the difference, helping take some of the pressure out of an extremely stressful situation.
Buildings insurance is also useful for non-home owners, helping to protect against any financial liability should accidental damage happen to a rented property.
Contents insurance usually covers all the contents in your home against theft or attempted theft, fire, water damage, storms or floods, smoke, lightning and malicious damage. Contents refers to all the things in your home that if you were to move, you'd take with you, including furniture, electrical equipment, clothes and bikes etc, everything that isn't a permanent and fixed fitting. At esure our contents insurance also includes accidental damage for your mirrors, glass furniture tops, any fixed glass in furniture and ceramic hobs.
Standard contents insurance cover often works out to be the cheapest, but you need to make sure that it really covers the things that matter to you. esure policies can be tailored to your needs if the basic policy isn't enough. Be honest with yourself about the amount of cover you need; cutting back on the amount you take out could mean that when you come to make a claim, you are not fully covered.
Some insurance companies like esure include cover for contents in your garden too - but not all of them do. These days, with mechanical gardening tools, kids' toys, bicycles and trampolines, you can have an awful lot of expensive things in your garden. esure's policies cover up to £2000.
A good money saving tip is to take out your building and contents insurance from the same company as discounts can be available - esure offers a discount as well as a contents no claim discount of up to 45%. Should you take out building and contents insurance from esure, we will give you an instant 40% discount just to say thank you. If you chose to stay with esure you can earn a further 1% discount for every claim free year, up to 45% no claim discount. Take a look at the premiums online in just a few minutes right here with an esure home insurance quote.
