Factors to consider when purchasing home insurance
Q1: Are you an owner-occupier, tenant, or landlord?
Owner-occupier: If you currently reside in a place you own, you should seriously consider getting a home insurance plan. Which covers your belongings, renovations, payout for emergency interim accommodation, medical expenses or your precious pet.
Next, you have to decide if you require an “Insured peril” or “All risks” policy. An “Insured peril” policy will cover your home against risks such as fire, flood, or housebreaking. While an “All risks” policy will offer protection against a whole wide range of risks such as earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes.
In Singapore, the latter is pretty low so we most would opt for an “Insured peril” coverage. However, an “All risks” policy is recommended. Because it will cover accidental loss and/or damage of all your home contents (barring exceptions).
For example, if you tripped and fell on your television causing it to fall and break, an “All risks” policy will cover you. An “Insured peril” policy will only cover a television falling and breaking if that fall was caused by a fire, flood, or plane dropping out of the sky.
Tenant:
If you are renting a home that is well-furnished. Your landlord will most likely have bought home insurance, so it’s not necessary for you to get one. However, if you are a tenant renting a home that is unfurnished. Then you will be the one who has to pay for the cost of the home contents. In this case, it’s wise to get a home insurance plan to protect your belongings and against other perils such as fire or theft.
If you are a student renting a room, co-sharing with other roommates, then you probably would not need to buy home insurance as your landlord would likely have purchased one.
Landlord:
As much as you hope your tenants will be responsible enough to take good care.of your home and items like the refrigerator, washing machine, sofa, bed, microwave oven and air-con. There’s a chance that belongings may be damaged due to carelessness. On top of that, you can also enjoy protection from personal liability. It should your tenant(s) decide to sue you for injuries sustained caused by objects or electrical appliances in your property.
Q2: What is the value of your home’s content?
Gone are the days when our grandparents or great-grandparents stashed away. Valuables in Milo tins and hid them under the bed. While most of us deposit money in banks and no longer hold large sums of cash at home today. Contents in our home are actually worth a lot. It may not hit you at first because some of the valuables may have accumulated over time. But expensive watches, laptops, smartphones, desktops, home entertainment systems, furniture, carpets, crockery and kitchen appliances can really add up.
Home Insurance is one newbie-friendly, flexible plan to take up, be it for new. Homeowners or those with a sudden realization that home insurance doesn’t quite cut it. Expect a comprehensive base plan that covers valuable home content, renovations and even financial fraud, at affordable premiums.