Home Emergency Cover is one of many general insurance policies designed to make your life a little easier. It works by providing you a set amount of cover for a wide range of domestic-related emergencies, to limit the damage, expenses and inconvenience caused by these types of incidents.
When you take out a home insurance policy, you’ll often be offered an optional add-on called home emergency cover.
It’s easy to gloss over this option when you’re in a hurry, but, it’s worth considering – after all, unforeseen emergencies are always a possibility, and it’s nice to have a little extra peace of mind if possible.
Home emergency cover does more or less what it says on the tin: covers you in the event of a home emergency.
For instance, if your boiler breaks down and you suddenly find yourself without any hot water or central heating, your home emergency cover will pay for a heating engineer to visit your home and get everything fixed right away.
In the event of an emergency, this type of cover is beneficial because:
- It allows you to get the problem resolved without delay
- It minimises inconvenience to you and damage to your home
- You won’t have to pay any unforeseen costs (you simply pay the cost of your home emergency cover on a yearly basis)
It’s important to note that these repairs would make your home safe and secure and prevent any further damage to your home, so be aware that the policy will not usually pay for any repair to cosmetic damage.
household insurance doesn’t cover some emergencies unless there is a consequential loss (i.e. boiler breakdown or a pest infestation) so it’s important to have HE.
Great! And all I have to do is add this on when I take out home insurance?
Well, that may not be your best option. Many home insurers offer home emergency cover as an add-on (allowing you to simply add HEC to your main policy), but generally speaking, you’ll get a much better deal if you buy elsewhere.
So why wait until your current policy expires to invest in home emergency cover?
Buy home emergency cover today and save money with Best Price FS >
What could I use Home Emergency Cover for?
A particularly bad patch of weather could cause damage to your roof, which may in turn cause a leak and affect the interior of your house. A boiler breakdown could cause a similar level of discomfort in the home, leaving you without heating or hot water. A Home Emergency policy would provide swift response to any of these domestic emergencies, with a qualified repairman coming out to your home to fix the issue.
An emergency call-out like this would usually be costly, especially if it’s out of normal working hours, so having Home Emergency cover is a useful way of avoiding the unexpected bills usually associated with fixing a mishap around the home. By limiting any internal damage to your home, this policy would also help to reduce your need to claim on any other such insurances you may have, like home insurance. It’s important to note that these repairs would be to make your home safe and secure and prevent any further damage to your home, so be aware that the policy will not usually pay for any repair to cosmetic damage.
What does a good policy look like?
Above all, a good policy should provide a high level of cover at an affordable price. To make sure you’re getting the most out of your cover, it should include at least £500 of cover per claim and there should be as few restrictions as possible – you can never predict what may happen a few months down the line, so the lower the excess and the higher number of call-outs included, the better.
What should I look out for?
Before you buy, be sure to check the small print as some policies may have restrictions. These could be on the material of the structure of your home, the fabric of your roof (many policies won’t cover a thatched roof, for example), or the age or type of the pipes (calling a drain cleaning company might be covered if the pipes are old) used in the home. It’s important to be sure that your home falls within the policy’s limits, but that’s not to say all products out there are restrictive – some will be far more lenient when it comes to the differing aspects that make up your home.
Where possible, consider choosing cover that can be bought on an annual, rather than monthly basis. Monthly instalments automatically include interest, so naturally it’s more expensive to pay this way when compared to the annual option. Paying annually may mean that your balance will take a bit of a blow initially, but if it means you save a few pounds in the long run then it’s an option worth considering.
Best Price Financial Services provide Home Emergency Cover starting from £55 a year.
Learn more about Home Emergency Cover and take advantage of this great deal.