Home Insurance - Check Your Cover

The "high season" for claims on home insurance policies is during the summer-time. The fact that the children are at home for the long summer holidays and long days mean that the house and garden are more likely to suffer wear and tear and the odd accident. It's good to see the children playing ball games, climbing trees and generally rushing around with their friends but when the expensively glazed conservatory suffers yet again from a cricket ball, you may long for the day they go back to school. Wet days are not very much better. If it's your turn to have their friends around, the crash from the sitting room may mean anything - from a broken vase to a broken TV or worse.

Christmas must come a close second. If you have an influx of visitors everything is going to working to full capacity. Log fires may look inviting, but sparks on the new rug seem to be inevitable. Maybe not as bad as spilled drinks right in the middle of the new carpet or suite. Low lights or a room lit by just the Christmas tree lights may look romantic, until someone falls over the Christmas presents or little Freddie's new scooter. Father Christmas has a lot to answer for.

But not to worry, you're insured for all these events. Or are you? Some budget policies are not a cheap as they seem, as they don't actually cover accidental damage. So if you've congratulated yourself on getting the cost of the home insurance right down, maybe you should have taken more notice of the actual content of the policy.

If you find that you don't have cover for accidents, it's simple enough to add this to both your contents and building insurance. The difference between these policies puzzles some people, but basically your contents cover is everything you'd take with you if you moved home and buildings cover covers what's left behind.

If you have repair work done on your conservatory - maybe repairing that damage that over-energetic children inflicted - then this would come under your buildings insurance. If you were carrying out maintenance work on the same structure and fell off the ladder, causing injury, then this would be considered to be an accident and the claim would be via the accidental cover, if you have this.

When it comes to contents cover, as we said, this would include the things you'd take with you if you moved home. You should find your policy and check whether your current cover means you have insurance in place for accidental damage and what reference is made to how the company handle wear and tear issues. You'll need to carefully read the small print to find out just where you stand.

Don't feel too much loyalty to your current insurer. It's a good idea to check that you're getting the best cover and value for money each year at renewal time. There are some really good and very comprehensive policies around offering excellent value. You may think you're too busy to do the comparisons, but if you go on-line and find an independent broker, they'll do this for you and get you the best choice of policies in next to no time.