Home Emergency Cover - What Is It? We’re Here to Breakdown the Jargon For You
Home emergency cover is great. When something goes wrong in
your home, it’s a weight off your mind to know you have financial cover for any
urgent repair work that needs doing.
But what exactly counts as an ‘emergency’ when it comes to
this type of insurance? And when you already have policies to cover your home
contents and buildings, why do you need it?
Let’s delve into some of the jargon and see if we can make
sense of it all.
Defining an emergency
Let’s say you are unlucky enough to suffer a burst water
pipe, which results in a large quantity of water flooding your home. It’s the
middle of the night when you discover the problem. Your first priority is to
shut off the leak, so you call an out-of-hours plumbing service to get someone
out asap.
The water is stopped, the burst pipe fixed and you turn your
attention to damage caused by the flood. It turns out that the spray of the
water from the pipe has severely damaged the plasterwork on a wall, while the
build-up of water has ruined a wooden floor. You are able to make a claim for
these on your buildings insurance. Unfortunately, one of your children’s
tablets also got caught in the crossfire of the spray. You claim for this
against your contents insurance.
But what about fixing the initial problem, the burst pipe
itself? You’re surprised to find out that neither your buildings or contents
insurance policies cover you for this. And because it was an out-of-hours
call-out, the plumbers’ fees don’t come cheap.
This is a classic example of a home emergency, and exactly
what home emergency insurance policies are designed for - to cover situations
that slip through the gap between contents and buildings insurance. A useful
working definition is that home emergency insurance covers you for the cost of
fixing the cause of a problem, not the damage that results from it - which is
what buildings and contents insurance are for.
However, not all issues count as an emergency. You wouldn’t,
for example, get very far if you called out a plumber to fix a leaking tap and
then tried to claim against a home emergency policy. So what counts as an
emergency?
There are slight variations from provider to provider, but
in general terms, an emergency for the sake of making a claim is anything which
threatens to damage your home, compromises the security of your home or
endangers the health and safety of you and your family. So in the above
example, the cost of calling out a plumber to fix a burst pipe out of hours
would be covered by home emergency insurance because it prevents further flood damage being done.
Other examples of what home emergency insurance would cover
you for include any issues with your gas supply or boiler, and likewise your
electricity supply, on safety grounds. Similarly, if you find you have no
running water and it is not down to an issue with the mains supply (your water
company would tell you this), you could also claim for work to detect and
repair the problem on health grounds. Likewise calling out a pest control
specialist to deal with an insect or rodent infestation.
On the security side, a classic example is losing the keys
to your home and either not being able to get in or lock your doors. While this
might sound very different to fixing a burst pipe, many home emergency policies
would pay out for calling a locksmith.
Hopefully, this has helped to clear up what can be a slightly
bewildering area of home insurance. If you would like to find out more or are
ready to get a home emergency insurance quote, click
here.
*The information in this blog is designed to provide helpful information on the subjects discussed. Please seek a professional for expert advice as we can not be held responsible for any damages or negative consequences upon following this information.