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Buildings and Contents Home Insurance Uk

Home Insurance in the Uk (United Kingdom), is available from a variety of sources with most people wanting to obtain a broad range of insurance perils at a cheap or at least, a competitive premium. A home insurance policy covers many different sections, if you have a mortgage on your home, you will need buildings insurance to satisfy the conditions of your loan. Buildings insurance can be provided on its own, or as part of a package insurance covering other sections. People buy home insurance in the Uk to protect their possessions, the cost of the insurance is cheap compared with the cost of having to replace an entire home or its contents following an insured peril. With weather patterns continuing to become more erratic and seemingly more and more extreme storms and floods, it is no wonder that in the Uk, Home insurance is considered as an essential product to purchase. The main sections of a Uk home insurance policy are as follows;  Buildings Insurance, Contents Insurance and All Risks Insurance ( wider cover for valuable items taken away from the home).

Each section of the Home Insurance policy will include a range of “perils”, regardless of who you end up buying your insurance from, these perils will be fairly standard and you will only find peripheral variations between product providers. The perils covered under a home insurance policy have been broadened over a period of in excess of 150 years often a s a result of change or a reaction to certain events. The original form of the policy covered Fire only and from this basis most modern wording have evolved with major changes in the last 30 or 40 years relating to subsidence & terrorism covers. To a great degree the form of home insurance uk policy you buy ( for building insurance) , will be governed by the council for mortgage lenders handbook. Almost all lenders are a member of this organisation and before they will lend you money to purchase a property, they will want to make sure that their interest is protected by a good Uk home insurance policy covering the range of perils specified in their handbook. The following are the perils you would usually expect to see contained within a Uk home insurance policy document. As stated above, they do vary from home insurance provider to provider.

• Fire, lightning, explosion or earthquake.

• Aircraft and other flying devices or items dropped from them.

• Storm, flood or weight of snow.

• Escape of water from and frost damage to fixed water tanks, apparatus or pipes, escape of oil from a fixed domestic oil-fired heating installation and smoke damage caused by a fault in any fixed domestic heating installation.

• Theft or attempted theft.

• Collision by any vehicle or animal

• Any person taking part in a riot, violent disorder, strike, labour disturbance, civil commotion or acting maliciously

• Subsidence or heave of the site upon which the buildings stand or landslip

• Breakage or collapse of fixed radio and television aerials, fixed satellite dishes and their fittings and masts,

• Falling trees, telegraph poles or lamp-posts

• The cost of repairing accidental damage to fixed glass and double glazing (including the cost of replacing frames, solar panels, sanitary ware, ceramic hobs.

• The cost of repairing accidental damage caused by external and visible means from a single identifiable event to • domestic oil pipes • underground water-supply pipes,• underground sewers, drains, and septic tanks,• underground gas pipes,• underground cables, serving the home and which you, are legally liable for

• Loss of rent due to you which you are unable to recover • additional costs of alternative accommodation, substantially the same as your existing accommodation, which you have to pay for while the buildings cannot be lived in following loss or damage which is covered under section one

• Increased domestic metered water charges you have to pay following an escape of water which gives rise to an admitted claim under number 4 of section one

• Accidental Damage to the Building ( usually an optional extra under a Uk home insurance policy.)

• Under the contents insurance section of the home insurance policy, the range of perils will be very similar, sometimes, extra covers include loss of keys, money or freezer contents, breakage of glass in furniture and mirrors and of course, you will have the option again to include Accidental Damage and All Risks cover.

Buildings Insurance.

Insuring the building of you home, whilst not compulsory by law, will be a requirement of your mortgage condition, as well as providing you with a wide range of perils, it will also cover you against Property Owners Liability. You home insurance policy will have to satisfy the council for mortgage lenders handbook and your lender will also want their interest noted on the schedule. The definition of home buildings does vary from one insurance company to another but only very marginally. Basically home buildings for insurance purposes can be described as the home and its decorations, its fixtures and fittings attached to the home, ( this would include sanitary ware, washbasins, sinks, bidets, lavatory pans and cisterns, shower trays, shower screens, baths and bath panels.) permanently installed swimming pools, tennis courts, drives, patios and terraces, walls, gates and fences and fixed fuel tanks. ( Many insurance companies will consider TV & Radio Aerials and satellite dishes to be contents, not buildings even though they are fixed to the building. The reason for this that often these items are removed when you move home. whereas other fixtures and fittings such as bathrooms and kitchens are not. Most insurance policies will also state that the home much be of standard construction and used for domestic purposes, unless otherwise agreed. Standard construction, does vary from one insurance company to another but as a general rule a home is considered to be of standard construction if it is constructed of brick, stone or concrete and roofed with slates, tiles, metal or concrete. Most insurance companies will allow a certain portion of the roofing material to be of flat construction ( felt on timber is fairly typical). Many homes incorporate flat roofing, particularly on extensions. If you are worried about deciding on what to insure as Buildings and what to insure as Home Contents, then a general rule is that anything you would leave behind if you sold the property should be insured as buildings and anything you would take with you , can be considered contents. As with anything, there are several grey areas. Carpets for one, will bring forth different responses from different home insurance companies. The safest way, is to insure them as Contents, even if they were supplied with the building as is the case in many new constructions,. If you so wishes, you could take them with you although nowadays this is not usually the practice.

Contents Insurance

This part of a home insurance policy is not a requirement of a mortgage lender although most people can see the benefit of insurance. Contents are defined as follows; Household goods and personal property, within the home, which are your property or which you are legally responsible for. Contents normally includes:

• tenant's fixtures and fittings

• radio and television aerials, satellite dishes, their fittings and masts which are attached to the home

• property in the open but within the premises ( usually up to a limit)

• money and credit cards up to £300 in total

• deeds and registered bonds and other personal documents ( usually up to a limit)

• stamps or coins forming part of a collection ( up to a limit )

• gold, silver, gold and silver plated articles, jewellery and furs Typically up to 35% of the sum insured.

• domestic oil in fixed fuel oil tanks up to £1,000 is usual

• office equipment up to a limit if agreed

It is worth noting that Contents does NOT include:

• motor vehicles (other than garden machinery), caravans, trailers or watercraft or their accessories

• any living creature

• any part of the buildings

• any property held or used for business purposes, other than as defined under office equipment

The simple rule is , that if you would take it with you, when leaving the home, it is contents and must include personal possessions and clothing. Under a home insurance policy in the Uk, contents insurance is usually arranged on a new for old basis. To obtain this valuable cover, you have to insure contents for the full replacement cost.

All Risks Insurance

All Risks Insurance, is an extension under a UK home insurance policy and whilst not covering every eventuality, it does provide very wide cover ( hence the reason why its more expensive) and is a way of cover your valuable items away from the home. Valuable items could include

• Jewellery

• Cameras

• Personal Possessions

• Lap Top Computers

• Musical Instruments

• Sporting Equipment

Insurers tend to split All Risks covers in to two separate types; Specified and Unspecified. Specified All Risks cover does work out slightly cheaper and is designed for individual items that are more valuable. The limits vary fro insurance company to insurance company and some will start as low as £750.00 for individual items. Anything below the threshold can be lumped in the unspecified section, which is more convenient because up to the threshold limit , you do not have to tell the insurance company what exactly, they are covering. Cover is provided on the basis that you select a maximum limit for items that you are likely to have out of the house at any one time. Add up the items. and insurance is usually purchased on the maximum amount of value away from the home at anyone time. For more information on home insurance uk, please refer to our other pages.