insurance policy FAQS

No, Homeprotect specialises in home insurance and related cover options such as legal expenses cover and home emergency cover. At this time, Homeprotect doesn’t offer any other types of insurance.

The policy schedule includes all the particulars relating to your policy, including any specific limits, individually named valuables etc. To view your own policy schedule, just login.

The policy booklets include the maximum levels of cover and any policy-wide exclusions. Policy booklets are available to download and view without logging in.

If you are still unsure, please contact our customer services team who would be happy to answer your questions.

Acts of God, sometimes called force majeure, are unpredictable situations like natural disasters. They are very rare but are usually excluded from an insurance policy. This is because your home insurance is based on measurable risks and an unpreventable Act of God cannot reasonably be quantified.

Whilst we have many existing customers in Northern Ireland, we’re currently unable to insure new customers. We hope to open our doors again for new customers in Northern Ireland towards the end of 2024.

Yes, Homeprotect provides home insurance for properties in the Channel Islands.

The value of your contents cover will increase automatically every year due to index linking. This ensures that the policy has enough value to pay out claims on a new for old basis.

However the rebuild value of your property will not increase automatically.

Under-insurance means that the ‘sum insured’ is less than the cost of rebuilding, replacing or repairing the buildings or contents at the time of the loss or damage. This might meant that any claim that is settled will be reduced in proportion depending on how underinsured you are, regardless of the amount of the claim.

For example, if your amount of cover only covers a proportion of the cost of rebuilding, replacing or repairing the buildings or contents, it is likely that the insurer will only pay that proportion of the claim for repair or replacement and you will have to cover the remaining cost of the loss or damage yourself. Where there’s a severe underestimations, your insurance provider could even refuse to pay out completely.

Being under-insured is different from being uninsured. When you are uninsured you have no policy in place at all. Although this saves you money in the short term, you risk losing far more than you save if the unexpected happens.

Recent research indicated that nearly 7 million households in Britain are underestimating the value of their home contents, and as many as one in five have no contents cover at all. These worrying statistics show that a massive £200 billion worth of our home contents is left exposed.

Problems occur when homeowners overlook items, often missing out entire categories in a given estimate, purely because the scope is so vast. You might look around your room, listing the items you can see and calculating their value, but neglect to include rugs or cookware. Items that are kept stored out of sight are also at particular risk of being forgotten, such as garden tools, luggage, linen, clothes (an average person’s clothing alone could cost over £10,000 to replace), and food and drink. You should make sure you account for absolutely everything when working out how much to insure for.

It’s also important to be aware of any changes to replacement costs that may arise from time to time, for example, if the price of precious metals changes.

The contents cover on your policy is index linked (unless your policy schedule states otherwise), this is to ensure that the policy has enough value to pay out claims on a new for old basis.

However the buildings section of your policy is not. Therefore you need to make sure that you insure your building for the appropriate amount.

No, Homeprotect only covers properties with in the United Kingdom, England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

Defaqto has awarded Homeprotect 5 stars for buildings insurance, which means that we offer you a very high quality product, covering your buildings with the best features and high cover limits compared to other insurance providers.

Defaqto is an independent financial research company. They independently rate insurance policies, with ratings ranging from 1 star to 5 stars. The star ratings are designed to help customers identify policies with the best features and optimum levels of cover.

It depends on what type of work you do at the property, for example if it is admin work then you don’t need to tell us about this and you’ll be covered.

However, if you have a registered business at your property, e.g. If you run a child minding business at home or if you have clients visiting the property then you will need to make us aware of this.

Note that this may result in an additional premium amount being payable and conditions being placed on your policy.

Insurance Premium Tax (IPT), is a levy charged by the UK Government on most types of insurance policies. 

The standard rate of IPT is currently 12% (increased from 10% on 1 June 2017).