Home insurance

If you’re working from home as a result of coronavirus, it won’t affect your home insurance policy.

Any work laptops or equipment should be covered under your employer’s liability insurance.

If you’re worried about any personal equipment getting damaged, check your contents policy to see your cover limits and exclusions.

If you want to protect any belongings you carry with you outside the home like your mobile phone, bags or jewellery, you’ll need to add personal possessions cover as an extra.

Some insurers include this as standard, but you can add it to your contents policy.

This covers items worth less than £1,000 each away from home. You can add cover for high value items worth more than £1,000 or laptops and bikes in your quote.

Yes.

Your home insurance excess is the amount you pay in the event of a claim. There are two kinds of excess - voluntary and compulsory.

As the name suggests, you can’t change your compulsory excess - that’s set by your insurance company. But you can increase or decrease your voluntary excess. In fact, increasing your voluntary excess is one way you could lower your home insurance costs. However this could mean you will have to pay more in the event of a claim.

Yes, flood insurance is usually covered in most home insurance policies but it’s worth checking the finer details with your provider.

The ABI (Association of British Insurers) launched the Flood Re. scheme in 2016, to help those living in flood risk areas find affordable home insurance. All home insurance providers in the UK pay into the scheme, with the money raised used to cover homes at risk of flooding.

Insurers will look at your credit score to check your financial profile, verify your identity to help prevent fraud and to provide you with their best premium and payment options but it shouldn’t affect the price you pay.

Roof leaks will be covered under your home insurance if you have home emergency cover. Cover for roof damage can be included as standard with some insurers but always check your policy details to be sure.

No, most home insurance policies don’t cover boilers as standard. Boiler breakdown is often covered under home emergency, an additional extra you can choose to add to your policy when you get a quote.

It’s not a legal requirement to have home insurance but it can help to give you peace of mind if something happens. It’s worth noting that if you’re buying a house, most mortgage lenders require you to have buildings insurance in place to cover the structure of the property.

You don’t usually need buildings cover if you’re renting, but you may want contents insurance to help cover the cost of replacing your things if you suffer a loss.

The amount of cover you need to be fully protected largely depends on two factors:

• The rebuild cost of your house
• The total value of your possessions

Your home’s rebuild cost is different to its current market value. A house that’s worth £200,000 might only cost £150,000 to rebuild, for example. Overestimating this amount could increase your home insurance costs, so it’s worth checking if you’re not sure.

When working out the value of your contents, think of everything you’d have to replace if the entire house was gone. This includes:

• All gadgets and electronics
• All clothes and jewellery
• All furniture
• All books, CDs, DVDs, games, toys and musical instruments
• The food in your cupboards, fridge and freezer

The amount of excess you pay is up to you and what works best with your circumstances. If you can afford to pay a higher excess in the event of a claim it could lower the cost of your insurance policy, saving you money.

Yes and no. Most insurers cover smaller DIY claims like drilling through a pipe, but if you’re planning on doing major building work like renovating an attic or adding a conservatory, you need to contact your insurer.

This is to make them aware of the potential risks associated with the construction work. Although this might increase the cost of your premium, it’s important to have the right cover in case you need to make a claim while the building work is taking place.

There are a few things that can affect how much home insurance costs, including:

• The size and location of the property
• The number of people living there
• The total cost to rebuild your home
• The cost to replace all your belongings
• The level of security at the property (e.g. burglar alarms, door and window locks)
• Any additional features you add to your policy (e.g. accidental damage cover)

Listed buildings might need specialist materials and particular methods of repair to maintain the look and feel of the original building.

A standard home insurance policy should also cover listed buildings. When you get a quote, we’ll ask you whether the property is Grade I or Grade II listed, or if it has a preservation order.

If you’re not sure whether your house is a listed building, you can check at Historic England, Cadw or Historic Environment Scotland.

If you’re renting, you shouldn’t need to get buildings insurance - that’s down to your landlord. It’s worth asking them if they have a buildings insurance policy in place.

If you want to protect your belongings, you might want to consider a contents insurance policy. If the house was destroyed, your landlord’s policy only covers the building itself, not any of your possessions.

If the place is furnished, your landlord might have a contents insurance policy in place specifically to cover the items they’ve included.

Trace and access means finding out where a potential leak is coming from. It’s included in most home insurance policies.

Knowing what door locks you have could help give you a more accurate quote. Here’s how to tell at a glance:

• Five-lever mortice deadlock is a wooden door that doesn’t lock automatically and has the words ‘5 lever’ engraved in the faceplate
• Five-lever mortice deadlock conforming to BS 3621 is the same as a standard five-lever mortice deadlock, but with a Kitemark on the faceplate along with a serial number
• Key-operated multi-point locking system is a plastic (UPVC) or composite door, and you have to turn the handle up to lock it
• Rim automatic deadlatch with key-locking handle is set into the surface of the door, rather than its edge

Home insurance policies usually provide cover against loss and damage caused by:

• Fire
• Flooding
• Storms
• Theft
• Vandalism
• Subsidence

With buildings insurance, this covers the cost of repairing or rebuilding your home after an incident.

With contents insurance, your policy covers the cost of fixing or replacing your possessions that have been damaged or stolen.

If you need to claim on your home insurance, contact your insurer as soon as possible to provide details, receipts, and any photographic evidence of the incident. Having this information to hand will help them process your claim faster.

Adding a joint policyholder allows the other person to make a claim, so it’s not only you who can deal with communications with your insurer.

Under some circumstances it can also lower your premium.