What insurance is required for a single homeowner?

shiny1982

hi

I'm in the process of buying a house on my own, and I'm a bit bamboozled by all the insurances that are off so would love some advice.

I know about buildings and contents its more what other insurances do I need?

I've been looking at Critical Illness, income protection, mortgage payment protection... is there others i need to look at/any of these can be disregarded?

I work full time, and get 6 months full pay then 6 months half pay if I'm ill/sick from my employer.

any help or advice would be amazing

thanks in advance

kingstreet

Required = buildings insurance.

Sensible = something to pay your monthly payments if you can't work due to illness or injury or if you lose your job.

Luxuries = life cover (if you want to pay to leave the unencumbered property to a next of kin), critical illness cover (only pays out a lump sum if you get one of the list of diseases at the right level of severity) so a bit "lottery-win."

HappyMJ

shiny1982 wrote: »

hi

I'm in the process of buying a house on my own, and I'm a bit bamboozled by all the insurances that are off so would love some advice.

I know about buildings and contents its more what other insurances do I need?

I've been looking at Critical Illness, income protection, mortgage payment protection... is there others i need to look at/any of these can be disregarded?

I work full time, and get 6 months full pay then 6 months half pay if I'm ill/sick from my employer.

any help or advice would be amazing

thanks in advance

No insurance is required.

Building insurance is highly recommended as the loss you could suffer would be very high.

Contents are only worth insuring if they have value. I don't have enough contents worth insuring so I don't insure them.

If you do get a critical illness you will get benefits from the government. Will those benefits be enough to pay the mortgage? Does it really matter? If you're critically ill your lender is not going to kick you out of your house if you're not making mortgage payments. They will wait and sell the house once you're gone and if you really are critically ill anyway what are you going to do with £100,000? If I become critically ill I'll just spend like mad on the credit cards. Any debts can be paid back from the sale of the house.

Income protection is quite costly. If you couldn't get by on Jobseekers Allowance or Employment and Support Allowance then you might want to consider it. I don't have it. I have savings instead to tide me over for 6 months and I do now how to live frugally. £73.10 a week is more than enough to pay the bills and put food on the table. It's not enough to go out those expenses would have to be put on hold....I'm not bothered. It's just small enough to live and encourage me to work harder and earn more money.

Person_one

I have buildings and contents.

I also get 6 months full 6 months half sick pay, plus a good death in service benefit to my NOK if I die while paying into the pension scheme.

Nobody will need or want to live in this house if I die, and there's more than enough equity that it can be sold quite easily and will leave my friends and family with enough to cover costs and then have a nice holiday or two each to comfort them in their grief!

Thankfully, I am unlikely to ever be in a position where I am unemployed for a long period due to lack of available work. That's not something I worry about.

If I ever become so ill or disabled that I am unable to work again, I'll have my year of sick pay, then claim SMI for as long as I can, then think about downsizing or moving to more appropriate accommodation depending on the circumstances. Maintaining a 3 bed house with a large(ish) garden may well be too much in that situation anyway.

That's my thinking, and my reasoning for not having any income/life insurance. You just need to think through your own circumstances and plan what you think you'd do if the unexpected happens.

Dan-Dan

happymj wrote: »

no insurance is required.

eh?

Building insurance is usually a condition of the mortgage

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/do-you-need-buildings-insurance

jbainbridge

Buildings insurance - required.
Contents - stupid not to.
The rest - up to you.

SmlSave

If you have a mortgage then you need buildings insurance.

Alter_ego

If you read the OP they know about Contents and buildings. The Q was about other insurance.

marksoton

shiny1982 wrote: »

I've been looking at Critical Illness, income protection, mortgage payment protection... is there others i need to look at/any of these can be disregarded?

I work full time, and get 6 months full pay then 6 months half pay if I'm ill/sick from my employer.

Only you know your requirements.

I have none of the above. But like you i have relatively generous sickness cover from my employer and decent DIS if i pop my clogs.