Comparing home insurance is easy with uSwitch
Our home insurance comparison service is free and impartial – and you could save up to £68 when you compare and switch.*
Simply enter your details and we’ll show you a range of quotes for cheaper home insurance.
Buildings and contents insurance explained
Simply put, buildings insurance covers damage to the main structure of your home and contents insurance covers damage to the possessions held inside. Both types of insurance tend to cover damage caused by:
- Fire
- Explosion or earthquake
- Theft or attempted theft
- Riots or vandalism
- Lightning, storms, falling trees, or flooding
- Subsidence
- Moving objects, such as a car hitting your home
- Escaping or leaking water or oil
You can choose to take out buildings and contents separately or together – our home insurance comparison tool enables you to do both.
Home insurance comparison – what you’ll need to have ready
Before you start to compare home insurance quotes, you’ll need to be able to tell us:
- The approximate rebuild value of the property you want to insure – don’t worry if you don’t know exactly, just tell us the rough amount
- Details of the types of locks on the doors and windows of the property
- Roughly how old the property is
- The rough value of the contents of the property and any items worth over £1,000
- Details of your current home insurance deal, your no claims bonus, and any claims you’ve made
Reducing the cost of home and contents insurance
There are a number of ways to reduce the cost of your home contents insurance – here are our top five:
- Try not to make a claim on your home insurance unless you’re really left with no alternative – the fewer claims you make, the lower your premium should be
- Make your home more secure by fitting good quality locks to all accessible doors and windows, and consider fitting a burglar alarm
- Fit and regularly test a smoke alarm
- Increase the excess – the higher the voluntary excess, the lower your home insurance premium should be
- Insurers tend to offer cheaper home insurance premiums if your house is occupied – if you go on holiday for more than 28 days at a time and leave the property unoccupied, they could charge you extra
