Its important for a council house tenant to understand what type of home insurance the need to give them piece of mind.
There are two main types of insurance: Building and Contents Insurance
Generally moveable items in your home need to be covered by home contents insurance. This might included your electrical items such as computers and hifi. Other items like your soft furnishings, carpets and home appliances would also be covered.
The two main types of contents insurance are ‘indemnity’ and ‘new for old’. The least expensive is indemnity cover. The insurance company will value your items when a claim is made rather than the items original price tag. For example, if a 10 year old television gets damaged resulting in a claim, the payout would reflect the age of the television.
The most expensive home contents insurance is the new for old type. If you claim successfully under this contents insurance the payout will be enough to buy brand new replacements. This will likely be a considerably bigger payout that the indemnity cover. It will enable you to go out and buy brand new replacements to cover your loss.
To cover the fabric of the house buildings insurance cover is needed. A council or housing associations tenant need not worry about this. The landlord will automatically have a buildings policy to protect their own interests. If the tenants home was damaged the council would arrange timely repairs at no cost to the occupier. If the unlikely event the tenant was deemed to be negligent and caused the damage. The council then might pursue the tenant for the cost of repairs.
For a typical council tenant our advice would be to treat the property as they would their own house. Get “new for old” contents cover and they will then have piece of mind that in the event of an accident or incident. Items will then always be covered properly by a sound insurance policy.
