Home Contents and Buildings Insurance
You have to protect your home against a number of eventualities, most notably fire, subsidence, flood and burglary. Home insurance comes in the two complementary flavours of home contents insurance and buildings insurance.
Buildings insurance you have to take out, having no say in the matter if you’re on a mortgage as the lender makes it a condition of the loan. This insurance protects you against a calamity happening and your house having to be rebuilt and is linked to the cost of this. You are, however, at liberty to shop around for the precise buildings insurance policy that is suitable for you and don’t have to accept any that the lender may suggest.
House contents insurance is a matter for you and you don’t even need to take it out, although it could be argued that only a fool wouldn’t. Burglars can strike out of nowhere and reduce you to tears of frustration and it will be ten times worse if you have to pay the cost of repair or loss yourself. You can also insure the contents of your freezer in the event of a power cut or some other accident, as well as covering accidental damage to your possessions.
There are lots of options in most house contents insurance policies and of course the cost creeps up as you cover yourself against more eventualities. Be careful which boxes you tick, because there’s no point in covering freezer contents if you don’t have a freezer. At the other end of the scale, you may find that when you accidentally sit on your favourite Rembrandt or someone makes off with it, you will find that it isn’t covered by the regular home contents insurance policy. Separate arrangements may have to be made for especially valuable individual items.