Home insurance

Home insurance falls into three categories - buildings, contents and combined policies. Buildings insurance covers the bricks and mortar of your home, and contents insurance covers your belongings. Typically, contents are anything you can pack up and take with you if you move home, such as furniture, clothes, and TVs. 

Combined policies can help reduce the cost of home insurance, but they’re usually only suitable if you own your home. They insure your property against damage, but also cover your belongings under the same insurance policy.

You can compare all three policy types through Confused.com.  

You can also add optional extras to your policy, such as home emergency cover  and legal cover  – however, some providers might include these as standard. Accidental damage cover is another extra worth considering, as it covers unintentional one-off incidents that harm your property or its contents. For example, putting your foot through the floor when you’re up in the loft, or spilling red wine on the carpet.

If you're a homeowner - or about to become one - then you should consider a buildings insurance policy. Although it's not a legal requirement, many mortgage lenders insist that you have buildings insurance in place to cover the property.

Buildings cover insures your bricks and mortar against damage from specific events such as fire, flood and subsidence. The policy will normally cover:

• the building itself (including the roof)
• your outbuildings, such as your garage or garden shed
• any fixtures and fittings, like your kitchen or bathroom

If you need to make a claim, there are several ways the insurer can pay out:

• repair the damage caused to the property
• replace the damaged part(s) of the property
• pay out the cash equivalent for the damage 

The level of cover you require is partially based on the rebuild cost of your property. You can use a rebuild cost calculator from BCIS to give you a rough idea of this. 

It’s important to get the right level of cover for your needs, as you don’t want to over or under-insure your property.

If you're renting, your landlord is usually responsible for insuring the building itself, but not your belongings. This should be confirmed in your tenancy agreement.

Contents insurance is generally aimed towards renters, though it's a policy that everyone should consider as a minimum level of cover. 

Contents cover protects your belongings in the event they're lost or damaged by theft or fire. It can also cover natural occurrences such as flooding.

Insurers consider contents as the items you'd take with you if you moved house.

Contents insurance generally covers:

• your gadgets (eg laptop, smartphone, TV)
• your furniture (eg bookcases, wardrobes, sofas)
• clothes and jewellery
• family heirlooms and antiques

If you need to make a claim, there are several ways the insurer can pay out:

• repair the damage caused to the items 
• replace the contents with the same or comparable items 
• pay out the cash equivalent   

If you’re not sure how much your contents are worth, check out our handy contents insurance calculator.

If you’re a student going to uni, it’s definitely worth considering student contents insurance to protect against loss, damage or theft of items such as laptops and bikes.