Home insurance cheapest in the UK
ARTICLES and advice on why you need home insurance can sometimes be wordy, complex and boring. This is not one of those articles.
You need home insurance if you answer yes to the following two questions:
1: Do you own a property and or things inside a property?
2: Do you have a brain?
The fact is that if you own or rent a property then you need to protect it or your posessions against loss. Unless of course you are Bill Gates (bloke that owns Microsoft and has around £50billion in his bank account) or have a similarly well endowed bank account and can afford to buy the planet.
What I am saying here is theoretically if you own a nice semi-detached home worth £200,000 and have another £30,000 of contents and it burnt to ground destroying everything, including next door, you could be liable to pay for both properties rebuild and reinstatement. Let’s say that costs £500,000 in total – can you afford that? Those with a brain will say yes because they have insurance in place that will pay the whole lot less maybe a small excess of £100 or thereabouts.
Those without a brain will slowly realise their piggy banks were incinerated in the fire and the £9.45 inside them is somewhat short of £500,000. Then the full realisation of what they have lost will start to sink in. Slowly because they have no brain, obviously.
Not only will it cost £500,000 to reinstate but any outstanding mortgage they have will also need to be serviced – shall we say £100,000? They will not feel warm and fuzzy paying a debt on an asset that has burnt down and now they need to pay to have rebuilt as well.
At this point the person with a brain and home insurance will be living in rented accommodation and going through carpet and curtain catalogues to spec out their new house, all of it paid for by the insurer. The one without the brain and insurance will be living with the mother in law and getting a divorce while struggling to see how they can ever get out of debt without going bankrupt.
The same applies for renters as much as owners. As long as you own things inside the property you really need to insure against loss or be prepared to pay for it all again yourself. Those with a brain will pay the normally small cost for tenants contents insurance. Those without will play dice with Murphy’s Law and if they get burgled or burnt down will be off to their mother in laws for a divorce.
If you don’t have home insurance go to The Property Insurer now and get it, you may be surprised at the low cost for an annual policy. The average buildings and contents policy costs around £220 with contents alone a fair bit less. That’s less than £500,000 and the cost of a divorce. Now ask yourself, is that plain English enough?
Jason McClean
The Property Insurer
