Home insurance

You're just one quick and easy search away from seeing multiple home insurance quotes - it's never been easier to find the right policy.

What’s home insurance?

If your home is your castle, then home insurance is your knight, preserving against misfortune and plunder - or at least fire, theft and other property hazards.

As the saying goes, good things come in threes, and you can choose between buildings insurance, contents insurance, or a combined buildings and contents policy.

The difference? Buildings insurance covers the bricks and mortar, while contents is everything that would fall out if you took the roof off, turned your gaff upside down and gave it a shake.

Should I take out building insurance?

We don’t want to scare you, but your home could be damaged by:

• Flood
• Fire
• Subsidence
• Vandalism and criminal damage
• Weather damage

But luckily, your building insurance should cover these ‘perils’.

Do you own a bungalow? A terrace? A semi a farmhouse or a palace?

Then it’s likely you’ll need buildings insurance to protect it from all these dangers.

If you're a tenant, you’ll probably only need contents cover.

Do I need contents insurance?

Contents insurance will protect all your prized possessions from theft or damage when they’re in your home.

You could also choose a policy that has ‘personal possessions cover’, either as standard or bolted on as an optional extra, to safeguard your stuff when you take it with you out and about.

Home insurance you can trust

You don’t need to take our word for it.

When you search with GoCompare you’ll have access to advisory Defaqto star ratings to help you pick a policy that’s hot to trot with all the features you need.

You’ll know all about the level of cover, features and benefits each policy offers before signing up.

Ready to get a home insurance quote?

To get a home insurance quote, you need to make sure you have a few bits of information about your abode to hand first.

We’ll help you every step of the way, but be ready to answer questions about the people living there, the ownership status, claims history, whether any occupants smoke, and if the property is left unoccupied, plus basic personal details, and more technical details about your home:

• Approximate age of the property
• Wall and roof construction
• If it’s a listed building
• Distance from water
• Business use
• If it’s up for sale
• State of repair and ongoing building work
• Central heating
• If it's self-contained or has extensions, garages or outbuilding
• History of subsidence, landslip, heave or tree damage

You'll also be asked about the types of locks that are used on external entry points.

If you’re unsure, we’ve got a guide and video that’ll help you easily identify your locks.

For contents cover, you’ll need to estimate the value of your possessions and for buildings cover you’ll have to state your home's market value and rebuild cost.

Luckily, we’ve got helpful guides and tools on all this and more stashed in our Home insurance loft - an area dedicated to home and contents information.

Need to know more about home insurance?

If you’re still in the dark about how to protect your home’s unusual features or safeguard against the elements, GoCompare has a catalogue of home insurance guides and videos to illuminate your way.

And, if you need to get informed about expensive issues such as flooding, security, fire, damaged pipes, subsidence risk and weather damage, our guides can answer a lot of questions and point you in the right direction.

We discuss the bells and whistles of add-on cover, such as accidental damage cover, home emergency protection, legal expenses or cover for possessions outside the home, so you can decide if you need it, or not.

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