How does home insurance work?
Home insurance protects your home – and by extension your finances – by covering you in the event of the unexpected. This might be fire, flooding, theft or accidental damage. If you need something replaced, rebuilt or otherwise fixed, home insurance can help cover the cost.
There are two types of home insurance – for the house itself and for all the stuff inside. These are referred to as buildings and contents insurance respectively, and depending on your circumstances RMT members might just need one of them, or both.
If you’re a homeowner, buildings insurance is often a condition of your mortgage. Even though it is not a legal requirement, it’s pretty important to make sure walls, roofs and floors are covered in the event of damage, and sometimes fixtures and fittings are part of the policy too.
Contents insurance looks after your personal belongings – things like clothes, electrical goods, and furniture. Policies don’t pay out for general wear and tear, but you should be able to make a claim for theft, fires and flooding. Accidental damage tends to be an optional extra.
If you rent your home rather than own it, a landlord should provide buildings cover but finding contents insurance will be up to you.
Buildings and contents insurance can be bought either individually, or as part of a combined home insurance product.
Specialists in ‘non-standard’ cover
Union Insurance Services’ panel of insurers includes specialists who may be able to get quotes better suited to your individual needs than you might find elsewhere. Remember, no one home is exactly alike, just as no one policyholder is, and some cases need a little more consideration.
‘Non-standard home insurance’, as it’s called in the industry, applies to houses that don’t quite fit building norms. This could be anything from a barn conversion to a flat roof. It also applies where your property is at greater risk, such as when it is in an area prone to flooding, and to members whose personal circumstances increase their perceived risk to insurers, for example bad credit history.
Around 1.5 million of the 25 million homes in the UK are now categorised as non-standard1, so this could potentially apply to many RMT members. Using Union Insurance Services still lets you shop around for the best deals, with a wide panel of nine insurers working to find cover for all.
Comparison sites are also designed to save time. No one wants to come home from work and spend their evening hopping between different insurers’ websites, having to input their details again each time to get a quote.
Even if you already have cover in place, using Union Insurance Services service can give you a better idea of current prices and going rates, so you can judge for yourself whether it’s worth sticking with your existing provider or switching to a cheaper deal.
When it comes to home insurance, Union Insurance Services knows that one size doesn’t fit all, but it believes saving money, time and hassle does apply to all, and works tirelessly to achieve that for its customers.
1 Non-Standard Construction Properties, Robinson Elliot Surveyors
