A report by Business Wire on the 21st of April 2021 revealed that some 73% of all consumers currently have some form of home insurance, a slight increase on the comparable figures for 2019 – with the majority of these customers choosing a combined building and contents home insurance package.
That widespread popularity of home insurance is hardly surprising given the strength of the protection offered by policies that safeguard an investment quite so significant as property. It is also likely to be regarded as good value for money and entirely affordable in light of the current slump in home insurance premiums noted by the Insurance Business Magazine on the 30th of April 2021.
It is also because home insurance offers such a very versatile form of security – and there is a wide selection of variants to match. So, let’s take a look at some of them:
The homeowner
Probably most familiar of all is the home insurance arranged by the owner-occupier of any type of property.
The homeowner naturally wants to protect the structure and fabric of the building in which he or she has invested so much capital, but the valuable contents invariably need safeguarding too.
For that reason, owner-occupiers are typically attracted by the discounts available by buying combined building and contents insurance. As the Money Saving Expert pointed out in an article updated on the 8th of June 2021, combining policies in this way may also avoid disputes about responsibility among insurers if you are making a claim for the same incident under both your building and contents policies.
If you are buying your home with the help of a mortgage, your lender is almost certain to insist that you maintain adequate home buildings insurance throughout the term of the loan.
The tenant or leaseholder
If you are a tenant or the leaseholder of your home, you may usually rest assured that your landlord is responsible for and has arranged building insurance for the whole of the property.
Especially if you are a leaseholder, you might want to confirm the details of any building insurance arranged by your freeholding landlord and, in any event, tenant or leaseholder, you will want to arrange cover for your contents – all your belongings and possessions against the risk of theft, loss, or damage.
There are even specialist contents insurance policies designed, for instance, for students or lodgers. Both are likely to have a more limited range of possessions but contents which nevertheless need the protection of contents insurance – even if this extends to the belongings packed into a single room.
Landlord insurance
If you are a buy to let landlord, you also have a home in need of protection by a suitable form of insurance.
But, in this case, of course, the home is occupied by your tenants – and that makes a critical difference in the kind of insurance you need. As the owner of buy to let property, your need is for a form of business insurance that protects your business and the potential liabilities you may encounter as a landlord. Appropriately enough, therefore, this type of insurance is called landlord insurance.
Just as with the home insurance arranged by the owner-occupier, landlord insurance also offers protection for the building and its contents – the principal assets of the landlord’s business – but also typically incorporates landlord liability indemnity insurance (as protection against claims from tenants and others who suffer an injury or have their property damaged through some connection with the property) and compensation for loss of rental income following a serious insured event when the let property is let temporarily uninhabitable pending repairs and reinstatement.
Right to Manage insurance
We have noted that tenants and leaseholders may typically rely on their freeholder or landlord to arrange suitable building insurance.
Leaseholders of flats, though, may exercise their statutory Right to Manage and collectively assume the responsibilities of the freeholder in arranging building insurance and the maintenance and upkeep of the grounds and common areas of the block.
In that case, specialist Right to Manage insurance is the appropriate form of cover for the building, common areas, and gardens.
Holiday let insurance
If you are fortunate to own a second home, you might divide your time between holidays there for you and your family and running the property as a business by letting it out short-term to visiting holidaymakers.
In that case, your home insurance for such a second home is something of a hybrid – it provides cover similar to that needed by you as a temporary owner-occupier yet also safeguards those periods when the property is let to tenants – not to mention potentially quite lengthy periods when it stands empty and unoccupied.
Holiday let insurance is, thus, yet another variation on the theme of home insurance.
Have you got the most appropriate insurance for your property?
If you are unsure as to what insurance type is required for your property, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01325 346 328 – we will be delighted to help clarify.
