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Home insurance: you might be convinced you don’t really need it. According to the Association of
British Insurers (ABI), about 7.5 million households in the UK do go without home insurance – but, if
your home is struck by damage or a burglary, you could hugely appreciate having such cover.
After all, the average UK household has roughly £35,000 of possessions, says the Money AdviceService – and contents insurance, one of the two types of home insurance, can cover the loss of these. The other type is buildings insurance, which can fund repairs to the building itself.
However, when you approach an insurer to apply for a home insurance policy, you could be startled to realise that even where you live can, for better or worse, affect how much you end up shelling out for this cover. So, to what extent is it a factor – and could you do anything about it?
Your risk to the insurer ultimately determines your premiums
The statistically likelier you are to need to make a claim on your insurance, the more the insurer will charge you for that cover – it’s a pretty simple equation. What’s not quite so simple is what boxes your residential property needs to tick in order to land you the lower premiums. It’s generally known that homes at high risk of flooding incur higher premiums, as do homes located in wealthier areas – presumably as, if you live in any such area, your architecture and belongings are likely to be high-value and so the insurer could have to foot a relatively large bill for replacements. Of course, perhaps the best way to discern how your choice of habitat could affect your insurance premiums is by getting it from the horse’s mouth... or, rather, the admiral’s. Yes, leading insurer Admiral has provided a lengthy list of factors it considers when calculating home insurance prices.
How will an insurer assess your home’s flood risk?
Admiral says it will do this by looking at whether you reside near water. You probably live closer to water than you realise; according to research by another insurer, Aviva, 67% of people living where the flood risk is especially high don’t realise they are running this risk at all. This is worrying given how, even just in the UK, extreme weather events have increased in frequency over time – and Aviva’s research also suggests that one in seven UK properties face a flood risk. Today, flooding is the leading cause of weather-related damage to homes.
Is your home really in a “safe” area?
You could easily be led into thinking it does – especially if, before you chose to move into your current residence, you pored over crime statistics in a bid to see how dangerous the local area seemed to be. Still, this data might not have told the whole story of the crime risk to your home. Admiral says that, for calculating premiums, it looks at what home insurance claims are made in the area where the applicant lives. If the insurer to which you apply notices that burglaries seem particularly common in your area, you could be hit with heftier premiums as a result.
How many claims have you made yourself in the last five years?
According to Admiral, this is the time period it considers when it looks at how often an applicant has recently made a claim on their home insurance. As a general rule, the fewer such claims you have made over that period, the less you will likely need to pay for your next home insurance policy. Naturally, the more dangerous your neighbourhood is, the more often you could have had to make a claim in recent years. However, even if you live in a dodgy area and can’t move away from it any time soon, you don’t need to entirely lose hope of trimming your home insurance premiums. This is because you could always equip your home with an array of security technology that, once in place, could potentially stop an attempted burglary in its tracks or even prevent it from happening at all. You could, therefore, with time, increasingly lessen your need to make home insurance claims.
How we can help secure homes in London and the South East
By phoning us on 01708 470351, you can arrange for us to visit your home and, while there, install a custom-designed security system. Even if your home already has a burglar alarm, we can easily service it – and we can also fit various commercial security systems in London.
After all, the average UK household has roughly £35,000 of possessions, says the Money AdviceService – and contents insurance, one of the two types of home insurance, can cover the loss of these. The other type is buildings insurance, which can fund repairs to the building itself.
However, when you approach an insurer to apply for a home insurance policy, you could be startled to realise that even where you live can, for better or worse, affect how much you end up shelling out for this cover. So, to what extent is it a factor – and could you do anything about it?
Your risk to the insurer ultimately determines your premiums
The statistically likelier you are to need to make a claim on your insurance, the more the insurer will charge you for that cover – it’s a pretty simple equation. What’s not quite so simple is what boxes your residential property needs to tick in order to land you the lower premiums. It’s generally known that homes at high risk of flooding incur higher premiums, as do homes located in wealthier areas – presumably as, if you live in any such area, your architecture and belongings are likely to be high-value and so the insurer could have to foot a relatively large bill for replacements. Of course, perhaps the best way to discern how your choice of habitat could affect your insurance premiums is by getting it from the horse’s mouth... or, rather, the admiral’s. Yes, leading insurer Admiral has provided a lengthy list of factors it considers when calculating home insurance prices.
How will an insurer assess your home’s flood risk?
Admiral says it will do this by looking at whether you reside near water. You probably live closer to water than you realise; according to research by another insurer, Aviva, 67% of people living where the flood risk is especially high don’t realise they are running this risk at all. This is worrying given how, even just in the UK, extreme weather events have increased in frequency over time – and Aviva’s research also suggests that one in seven UK properties face a flood risk. Today, flooding is the leading cause of weather-related damage to homes.
Is your home really in a “safe” area?
You could easily be led into thinking it does – especially if, before you chose to move into your current residence, you pored over crime statistics in a bid to see how dangerous the local area seemed to be. Still, this data might not have told the whole story of the crime risk to your home. Admiral says that, for calculating premiums, it looks at what home insurance claims are made in the area where the applicant lives. If the insurer to which you apply notices that burglaries seem particularly common in your area, you could be hit with heftier premiums as a result.
How many claims have you made yourself in the last five years?
According to Admiral, this is the time period it considers when it looks at how often an applicant has recently made a claim on their home insurance. As a general rule, the fewer such claims you have made over that period, the less you will likely need to pay for your next home insurance policy. Naturally, the more dangerous your neighbourhood is, the more often you could have had to make a claim in recent years. However, even if you live in a dodgy area and can’t move away from it any time soon, you don’t need to entirely lose hope of trimming your home insurance premiums. This is because you could always equip your home with an array of security technology that, once in place, could potentially stop an attempted burglary in its tracks or even prevent it from happening at all. You could, therefore, with time, increasingly lessen your need to make home insurance claims.
How we can help secure homes in London and the South East
By phoning us on 01708 470351, you can arrange for us to visit your home and, while there, install a custom-designed security system. Even if your home already has a burglar alarm, we can easily service it – and we can also fit various commercial security systems in London.
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