Home Insurance News Articles

An MP has called for a review of home insurance after finding some constituents in flood-risk areas had seen premiums rise five-fold.

Diana Johnson says some people are getting quotes of more than £1,000 a year, with excesses as high as £6,000. She questioned whether the market for insurance was working in all areas.

The complaint has reawakened the debate over the insurance Full Story

The AA has reported that premiums for both contents and buildings cover have risen, the latter to an all-time high.

The figures, which are based on a survey of multiple insurers, found the average buildings cover is now £152, a 14% rise across the past year. That's been blamed on an increase in claims caused by unusually high levels of severe weather such as storms and flash floods. The most common cause of a Full Story

Insurers have warned that rising precious metal prices mean home insurance policies may not fully cover valuable jewellery.

With gold and silver prices having rocketed, there are triple risks for policyholders. Firstly, there's been a major rise in the number of thefts involving jewellery: Churchill Home Insurance says Full Story

Lloyd's of London has warned that insurance premiums could rise as a result of global natural disasters.

The company provides underwriting to insurers, effectively offering them a measure of cover against paying out unexpectedly high amounts. While insurers build in an expectation of disasters when calculating premiums, the first few months of 2011 has seen far more major incidents than usually takes place in such a short spell, including flooding in Australia, earthquake in New Full Story

Insurers are continuing to warn that they might not be able to guarantee offering flood protection to some customers if government cutbacks affect the budget for flood defences.

At the moment, the Association of British Insurers has a deal with the government by which it promises to offer cover to all but those at the most at-risk homes, with the government committing to boosting defences. That deal runs out in 2013 and the ABI says that it can't be extended in its current Full Story

New research by the comparison site Gocompare.com has revealed that although 61 per cent of consumers are expecting 2011 to be a very difficult year financially, over 12 million** of them have never switched any of the 20 most common financial products including car insurance, home insurance, energy provider, credit card or mortgage lender.

13.8% of consumers have NEVER switched their home insurer. Full Story

Home insurance has become the biggest problem area for fraudulent claims according to the Association of British Insurers.

Home claims now make up 170 of the 335 fraudulent insurance cases detected on an annual day. Motor insurance is responsible for "only" 108 bogus claims. However, such claims tend to be for much larger sums: fraudulent motor claims average £1.12 million a day (more than £10,000 per claim), almost half of the £2.3 million for the entire Full Story

The Financial Services Authority has issued one of its biggest ever fines to the director of an insurance company that collected premiums but didn't put the policies in place.

The company, Jeffery Flanders (Consulting) Limited, had forged documentation to scam other insurance companies. The customers, many of whom were elderly or vulnerable, were left without adequate home and motor cover. Director Andre Jeffrey was hit with a £150,000 fine.

In a separate case four Full Story

As many as 1.5 million people could be without adequate home insurance according to a new survey.

A poll of 2,017 homeowners found 2% had contents insurance but no buildings cover, 3% had buildings insurance but no contents cover, and 1% had neither type of insurance.

The survey also found that the problems were more serious among young adults, with 12% of those aged 18-34 missing at least one of the two insurance types. London and the South East was the most underinsured Full Story