Protecting your home

Price should never be the deciding factor, when protecting what matters most to you

So when it comes to choosing your home insurance, getting the right price can be relatively easy, but how do you know you’re getting the right cover and service to protect what matters to you?

Therefore, it is very important to consider a policy with a Five Star Defaqto rating. Defaqto’s Home Insurance Star Ratings reflect the features, benefits, cover levels, settlement terms (new for old, or fair market value), and excesses of every home contents insurance, building insurance policy available in the UK, with each product being awarded a rating from one to five stars.

The overall level of cover, excess, features and benefits offered by the various home insurance products on the market vary considerably, making it important that you consider more than just the price of cover when selecting a home insurance policy.

Most of the providers on our panel are Five Star Defaqto Rated, please ask us for details.

Please ask us to tailor a policy for your consideration, that exactly meets your needs.

Please note, for these insurance products, terms and conditions apply. This information is a summary only. You will receive a full policy document upon application. This policy will set out the terms, conditions and limitations of cover provided under the plan.

Helping you understand the various policy features

Accidental damage is cover for any damage to your home or contents caused (accidentally) by a person. Some examples of this would include:

  • Putting your foot through the ceiling whilst moving stuff into the attic
  • Spilling wine on the carpet
  • Accidentally kicking a football through a window
  • Leaving the tap on and flooding the kitchen

In addition to the above, the principle benefit of accidental damage to buildings is that your external drain and pipe systems are covered up to the buildings sum assured, in the event of accidental damage.

Trace and Access covers you for the damage caused by tracing and accessing the problem, up to £10,000 per claim. If you didn’t have trace and access cover, this could impact you hard financially. For example, if you had a burst pipe underground in your kitchen, the floor tiles and boards would have to ripped up, remove cabinets, etc, to access the pipes. The insurer would fix the leak to the pipes, but wouldn’t cover you for the damage to the kitchen caused accessing the pipes. With Trace and Access cover, you would receive money to repair/replace the floorboards, tiles, cabinets, etc, too.

Family Legal protection covers you up to £100,000 (depending on provider) for any legal and professional fees, costs and expenses in connection with pursuing civil legal proceedings, such as employment disputes, tax enquiries, legal defence, etc.

This covers you in case of an emergency at the property, up £1,000 per claim. Generally, an emergency is an incident in the property which, if not dealt with quickly will:

  • Make it unsafe or insecure for its occupants.
  • Cause damage to the property and its contents.
  • Leave the home without its primary source of heating, lighting or water.

So, examples of a Home Emergency might be things such as: being unable to lock your front door (making the home unsafe or insecure); waking up in the middle of the night to find that a leak is coming through your bedroom ceiling (therefore, causing damage to the home and its contents); or your boiler breaking down and you having no heating or hot water (therefore, leaving the home without its primary source of heating or water).

This covers you for any legal liability for damage caused by you in your household or land, which results in bodily injury to anyone outside of your household, or to any loss or damage to material property not belonging to you or your household.

Occupier’s liability covers you for the same incidents and Property Owner’s Liability; it’s covered under contents for people with contents only insurance, such as a flat owner or a tenant.

Personal Possessions covers your possessions away from the home and around the world. So, if you’re entire suitcase, handbag, etc, were stolen, lost or damaged when on holiday, in the UK or anywhere in the world, everything would be covered from your clothes, to your mobile phone (usually requires specifying on the policy), credit cards, laptop, camera and more.

To help you decide which options can fulfil your needs best