Home insurance - tips & advice - contents insurance

Accidents do happen in the home. You could have a DIY disaster for example, or break a piece of expensive furniture. With Direct Line home insurance you can add accidental damage cover to your home insurance to help cover some of the costs.

Direct Line offers two types of home insurance. Home buildings cover is designed to cover the cost of rebuilding your home should anything happen to the structure of it through incidents such as fire, flood, vandalism or subsidence. Home contents cover is designed to protect your home contents, including some items in your outbuildings and garden, in case they should be damaged or lost through similar emergency situations. You can find a full list of the terms and conditions that apply in our online home insurance policy documents.

Some accidental damage cover is included as standard under our home insurance policy – accidental damage to home entertainment equipment is included in our contents cover as standard and our buildings insurance automatically covers accidental damage of fixed glass and sanitary ware.

You only pay a small extra premium to add full accidental damage cover to your standard Direct Line home buildings or contents insurance, so if you can afford a little bit more we would recommend making the investment. It’s especially worth taking out if you are a bit of a DIY fan; you will recognise what a good move it can be if you’ve had an accident at home in the past and been without accidental damage cover to enable you to make a claim. Those who have lots of fragile items around the house or have small children who can easily break things, should also consider protecting their contents further.

Accidental damage does cover damage to furniture, carpets and ornaments so the extra cost is well spread across your home. Some exclusions do apply, such as damage caused by any paying tenant, domestic pets, uninsurable risks and faulty design, workmanship or materials (these could, of course, affect any DIY claims you make). You should also be aware that we don’t pay for the cost of routine maintenance or redecoration.

To find out more about Direct Line’s accidental damage cover view our online policy documents. You can also find a list of all our home insurance optional extras under our summary of cover.

We try to make all our products as great value as possible, so to find out how much you could be saving, apply for a home insurance quote today. Buy online today and we’ll give you an instant discount.