Home insurance

There are a few simple steps you can take to try to reduce the cost of your home insurance:

• Shop around: Every time your contents and/or buildings insurance comes up for renewal, run a fresh quote at
• Compare the Market. You may find a provider that can offer you a cheaper policy than your current provider, but with the same level of cover.
• Consider a combined policy: If you need contents and buildings insurance, you might pay less if you buy both from the same provider.
• Boost security: Using high-quality locks on your doors and windows, and installing a burglar alarm and smoke alarm, could make your home insurance cheaper.
• Avoid instalments: If you can afford it, pay your premium upfront in one go. If you opt to pay in monthly instalments, you might be charged interest on top.
• Increase the excess: If you’re willing to raise the amount you contribute towards a claim, you’ll usually pay a lower premium. But don’t opt to pay more excess than you can afford if you need to claim.
• Build up a no-claims discount: If you don’t make a claim on your home insurance, you could be rewarded with a discount on your next premium. Generally speaking, the longer you go without claiming, the more you can save. And you’re likely to be able to carry over the discount if you switch to another insurance provider, so make sure you include this when you get a quote.

How high you set your home insurance excess depends on how much you can afford. With compulsory excess, your insurance provider sets the amount and you can’t change it. With voluntary excess, you can change the amount. By raising your voluntary excess, your premiums are likely to be cheaper. But don’t set it too high – you want to make sure you can afford to pay both the compulsory and voluntary excess, should you need to make a claim.

Having a poor credit score may affect the cost of home insurance. But you’re still likely to be able to find an insurance provider with a policy and price that suits you.

You may decide you need home insurance add-ons if you think your standard policy doesn’t give you enough cover in specific areas. For example, adding accidental damage to your policy would typically cover things like ink stains on furniture or orange juice stains on the carpet.

Some home insurance providers need to know which types of door lock you have, because some are considered more secure than others.

• Five-lever mortice locks are often found on wooden front doors and require a key to both lock and open them. You could receive a discount on your premium if your lock has the British Standard Kitemark on it.
• Multi-point locking systems are commonly found on uPVC doors. If you need to lift up the handle to lock the door, you’ll probably have one of these. They have a minimum of three locking points that all lock simultaneously with the turn of a key.
• Night latches are mounted on the surface of a door so aren’t as secure as other types of lock. Their advantage is that they automatically lock the door when it closes. Double-locking night latches are the most secure as they need a key to open the door from inside and outside.

When working out how much buildings insurance to get, remember that you only need to insure the cost of rebuilding your home and not its market value. You can find the rebuild cost of your property in your home survey or by using the rebuilding calculator on the Building Cost Information Service website.

The best way to calculate the value of your home’s contents is to make an inventory of all your possessions. When you get a quote with us, you can use our handy calculator to help you add up the value of the contents in your home, room by room.

Find out more about how to estimate the value of your home contents.

If you’re building an extension or carrying out any sort of construction work on your property, you should let your home insurance provider know. While knocking down walls, plumbing work and taking up floors will usually be carried out safely, they all have the potential to cause damage that could lead to an insurance claim.

It’s likely you’ll have to pay more for your premium, both during the construction work itself and afterwards, as an extension will add to the rebuild cost.

If you’re carrying out large-scale renovations to your home, you might need specialist insurance to cover you during the work.