Is your property underinsured?

According to the Mortgage Advice Service* the average UK home contains £55,000 worth of belongings, yet on average we’re only insuring them for £35,000, this begs the question – is your property underinsured?

Most people know they need to buy buildings insurance because the mortgage lender requires it as a prerequisite for supplying the customer with a mortgage. Not all customers choose to also protect the content of their homes or as the above figure suggests, they may have contents insurance that won’t adequately protect them if their belongings were stolen or damaged.

So, why is a high percentage of UK property underinsured? Price is usually one of the biggest deciding factors when customers are choosing a policy, and as such, this drives hundreds of people to price comparison websites each day to find the best deal. Unfortunately, if a cheap policy doesn’t sufficiently cover your home and contents then you may be left with a large shortfall when making a claim or find that your insurer won’t pay out at all due to exclusions in the insurance policy.

Here are a few of the dangers of using price comparison sites:

• Credit checks can be made at quote stage that could leave footprints on your credit file and may affect your credit rating.
• Some comparison sites have default answers which generally make the price of the insurance cheaper e.g. “The property is occupied during the day”. If these answers are found by the insurance provider to be false, then they may not pay out if you were to make a claim.
• Comparison sites tend to only show you quotes from a panel of insurance providers and not necessarily a fair representation of the full market.

A comparison site or insurance provider will not go to great lengths to ensure that you have the right level of cover in place, however, our Mortgage and Protection Brokers will. As an FCA regulated firm, it is our duty to spend time understanding your individual situation to ensure you have cover that will adequately insure you and check all the fine print on your behalf. What’s more, we don’t charge you any fees to find you the best cover and will contact you annually to ensure your policy still meets your needs.

For a free no-obligation quote, call our Mortgage and Protection Brokers on 01702 533 400 or request a call back.

Go back