Home Insurance

Home insurance is not a legal requirement but if you are taking out a mortgage on your property your lender will require buildings insurance cover to be taken. It is more paramount now since we are led to believe that home burglaries are up, floods are becoming more likely and the majority of us have expensive portable kit such as lap tops and other hi tech gadgets we can't do without!

Home contents insurance can be a fairly cheap way of ensuring peace of mind as far as the loss of material objects goes. Many insurers offer extensions to their policies which mean's that if you have bikes in the garage or shed, expensive garden plants or out door furniture, you can add these on to your policy.

Calculate your level of cover by going from room to room making notes on all the items you would need to replace in case of theft or damage. Some policies will include a new for old clause which means they pay out for the item at today's prices. There will be exclusions to this and you should be aware of what they are on your policy. You should aim to give an accurate estimate of your items and not under or over estimate the value. If you have very expensive items you should speak to your insurer about taking out separate insurance. Keep your cover level updated and add items during the year if you need to. There are some insurers that have set amounts of cover available to save you the trouble of calculating exactly what value your contents add up to.

It is important to do your bit for security if you are looking for a competitively priced policy. Fitting window locks, five lever mortise locks to exterior doors, burglar alarms and becoming a member of your local neighbourhood watch will all result in cuts to your premiums.

Burglar alarms can be fitted at a reasonable cost, if you would like to have your alarm wired to include a live police response, it will cost more and must be reliable as many local police authorities will charge your household if there are too many false alarms.

With the advent of high tech security gadgets becoming more readily available, many more security conscious people are investing in CCTV. For as little as £200 you could have cameras fitted to your property and monitor the activity around your property through your personal computer changing from camera to camera and retrieve pictures within a time frame that can be frozen and zoomed in on