Home & Contents
Home cover: the difference between buildings and contents
One insures the structure, the other insures what falls out if you turned the house upside down. The gap between them is where…
Colette Fenn
Contributing writer, Insured and Ready
Colette covers home and contents insurance and has read more policy wordings than anyone should.
Contact Colette through our contact page — mark your message for their attention and it will be passed on.
16 articles
Home & Contents
Escape of water is the claim that ruins a house
It is the most frequent large home claim in many markets, and much of the damage is decided by how fast the water is found.
Health Cover
Guided hospital lists: a cheaper premium bought with a shorter menu
Restricted-network health policies work by narrowing where you can be treated. That trade is real value for some people and a trap…
Health Cover
Pre-authorisation, not the invoice, decides whether treatment is paid
A health policy that covers a procedure will still decline it if nobody asked first. The call before treatment is a condition of…
Health Cover
Health cash plans do a different job from health insurance
A cash plan reimburses small everyday costs up to a fixed annual sum. It is a budgeting device with an insurance wrapper, and…
Home & Contents
Accidental damage cover buys you clumsiness, not carelessness
The add-on that pays for a foot through the ceiling has a boundary, and the boundary is whether the damage was sudden and…
Home & Contents
Subsidence claims move slowly for a structural reason
A crack does not tell an engineer whether the ground is still moving. Monitoring takes seasons, and that is why these claims take…
Health Cover
Dental and optical cover is budgeting dressed as insurance
Routine dental and eye care is predictable, frequent and modest. Those are exactly the conditions under which pooling adds nothing.
Health Cover
Cancer cover is the clause worth reading first
Oncology is the benefit most likely to be tested and the one most often restricted quietly, from drug lists to post-treatment…
Home & Contents
Matching sets and pairs: the half-replaced kitchen problem
When one tile, one worktop or one earring is destroyed, an insurer owes you the damaged part, not a matching whole.
Health Cover
Therapy limits are counted in sessions before they are counted in results
Physiotherapy and similar treatments are capped by number, by money and by referral. All three caps can stop a course halfway…
Home & Contents
An empty house stops being fully covered sooner than you expect
Most home policies restrict cover once a property has been left unoccupied for a set number of days. The clause is short and it is…
Home & Contents
Single-article limits are where jewellery quietly falls out of cover
A contents policy with a large sum insured can still refuse most of the value of one ring. The limit that matters is per item.
Home & Contents
Rebuild cost is not market value, and the gap runs both ways
The buildings sum insured has nothing to do with what the house would sell for. Confusing the two produces the wrong figure in both…
Home & Contents
A storm has a definition, and a windy night may not meet it
Storm damage claims fail more often on the definition of storm than on the damage itself. Insurers apply a test with three separate…
Home & Contents
Trace and access pays to find the leak, not to rebuild around it
Water damage cover pays for what the water ruined. Finding the pipe that leaked is a separate benefit with its own limit.