If you have recently bought a house or moved into a new home, you need to consider the insurance that you need. The problem is that there are many insurance providers and policies that you can choose from. This is why you need to know what to look for in the home and house insurance that you get.
Buildings Insurance
If you have purchased a house, you will need to get buildings insurance. This insurance will give you the protection you need should something happen to your home such as a fire. When you look at this insurance, you need to estimate the cost to rebuild your home.
This can be hard to do and many people overestimate this. The rebuild cost will be for the physical house only and should not include the land. It will also exclude all of the items in your home.
Home Contents Insurance
If you have bought a house or are renting, you need to get contents insurance. This insurance will protect all of your possessions. When it comes to purchasing this insurance, you need to value all of the items in your home.
The best way to go about doing this will be on a room by room basis. This will ensure that you do not miss anything that will not be covered when you get the insurance. It is also important that you not undervalue any of the items as you will end up having to pay out of pocket should you need to make a claim.
Check The Damage That Is Covered
Knowing the types of insurance that you need to get is important, but you need to know what is covered. Many insurance policies will only cover certain events that cause damage to the building or your possessions. It is very important that you read through the policy and find out what the exceptions are.
Accidental damage is one area that you need to focus on. Most policies will provide accidental damage coverage, but your contents insurance might exclude damage caused while cleaning, maintaining or repairing items. Your contents will also generally not be covered if they are damaged outside of your home.
The Excess
If you want lower monthly premiums, you can increase the excess on your policy. This can lower the monthly burden, but you need to be very careful with this as you will have to pay the excess before you can make a claim. Ideally, you will want the excess to be as low as possible to save you paying large amounts before you can claim.
Some insurance policies will have different excess amounts for different sections of your policy. You need to check the whole policy to ensure that the one excess is being used throughout. The excess will need to be an amount that you can comfortably afford in times of trouble.
Investing in Home and house insurance is something that you need to badly need. Buildings insurance is only required if you own the property, but you need to have contents insurance even if you rent. You also need to know what damage is covered and what the excess of the policy is.