Home Building Insurance

There are a few crucial differences between business and home buildings cover, but the main one is the liability insurance you get with each.

For your home property, you need homeowners liability insurance. This covers you if a guest or their property is injured or damaged at your home. This ranges from minor injuries to death. It also covers you if, say, a tree on your property falls into your neighbour’s yard and onto their car.

For businessowners, you’re likely to face many more risks than a homeowner would, especially if you run a retail store where numerous customers and staff come and go all the time. Your public liability insurance should cover a much wider range of risks and will usually be for a higher insured amount.

It can get tricky knowing which portion of your home gets covered under home building insurance and which is covered under business insurance.

When you insure a business building, you would usually take out a comprehensive business policy that covers a range of risks, one of which would include your business premises. So your house will still be insured with a home building policy, but you’ll also have business insurance which takes care of the office or study portion of your house.

The important thing to remember is that you let your insurance company know you have a home office. If you don’t, you might not be covered if anything happens to your property or the business assets you keep inside it.

Technically, if you insure your home and business buildings with Budget, you’ll have two separate policies, because our personal and business insurance each have their own specialised divisions. You’ll also probably pay for them from separate accounts – your personal and business banks. Having said that, trusting us with your home and business assets means you can enjoy a relationship with one insurance company for all of your insurance needs. Sticking with us means you get affordable cover and access to helpful and friendly consultants whenever you have a query.

It’s not always possible to say which is going to cost more, because it depends on the value of the building you’re insuring. Having said that, you would rarely insure only your business building; you’re likely to also cover the equipment, accessories, and apparatus that are in it. So, you might find your home building insurance is a little cheaper than the business cover.

We get asked this question a lot, but to answer it, we need to first look at the difference between buildings and home contents insurance.

Buildings insurance is for the permanent structures, fixtures, and fittings on your property. This includes the house, cottages, garages, fences, and walls.

Home contents insurance covers the loose valuables that you keep inside those permanent structures. So if you’re wondering if your printer, laptop, and other work devices are covered for work use if you use them at home occasionally, they are – but only under home contents, not buildings insurance.