Each home is different, meaning that the insurance covers for the home must match what reflects its specific features and needs of the homeowner. When you complete a Household Insurance Proposal Form, you are actually painting a picture of your home, describing what it requires in terms of insurance covers, making sure you have the right values in place, and that any belongings or equipment that are important to you are covered, as you would like them to be.
RCI’s advice on what to note during the pre-issuing procedure –
- BUILDINGS – If you are a home owner, you need to insure your building and declare its value, which will be the Sum Insured on your Policy. You cannot insure it for the amount spent when building it. Inflation is on the rise, all construction costs are on the rise, and since the Sum Insured is what an Insured will receive in compensation in the event the home is totally destroyed, it has to reflect how much it would cost to rebuild it. For example, ten years ago, an average house was constructed on the basis of 1000 Euro per sq.m. Nowadays, it’s at least 2500 Euro per sq.m. This is very important, because of the concept of under-insurance. For any claim you make regarding your building, any compensation would be proportionately reduced to the percentage of under-insurance detected. If your home is older than ten years, the best way is to have an official valuation by an expert, or use the base of 2500 sq.m if it is an average, not notably luxurious home.
- CONTENTS – If you are either a homeowner or a tenant, you will need insurance cover for your contents. It is not easy to calculate the value of all your furniture, electrical equipment, decorative items, personal belongings and all the objects located inside your home. The amount you declare is always inevitably going to be an educated guess, and that poses no issues. However, you should know that if you have valuable items, you should have them specially declared and insured on their own – e.g. a valuable painting, carpet or a collection or anything you would like insured separately, in which case you would receive the compensation you decide in the event of loss or damage. Jewellery is also important- if you have items that have high (sentimental even) value to you, they should be included in your Policy as insured separately (this is important so look below, in our “All Risks” notes.)
- PROPERTY LOCATED OUTSIDE – you may or may have not a garden or a yard in your home. But if you are a homeowner or tenant, if you do – make sure you have the appropriate cover and for what perils it is covered. Each insurance provider has their own take on which type of property can be covered when outside, and prone mostly to risks related to weather conditions. RCI’s policy excludes certain equipment for perils such as storm/tempest/flood/cyclone/tornado, but it covers others. The important thing is for you to carry out an inventory of what you have in your garden or yard, and declare your preferred sum insured of that kind of property. That will mean that you will have a Policy that will cover the amounts that you have decided upon, in the event of loss or damage.
- ALL RISKS COVER – RCI covers you declared property for anything that might happen to it. This is what you would need for your valuable items, such as an expensive watch or bracelet, if you never take it off. It would be covered even if you lost it – but you would have to declare it and insure it separately for the Sum Insured that you select. If you never take off your favourite earrings, if you wear your watch at the seaside, if you would like to show off your famous painting or valuable collection of stamps and therefore take it out of your home, and there’s damage incurred, the Insurers will pay out the Sum Insured you decided upon, and is shown on your Policy Schedule.
- HOW TO AVOID CLAIMS – You might have a large range of covers, especially if you have a Household Combined Insurance with RCI, but there are still some exclusions. Or, even if they are not excluded, compensation to you for claims incurred, will have an impact on your renewal premium. What could you do about that?
- Have an expert plumber check out your drainpipes and gutters – make sure they are clean and, that in the event of storm/tempest/flood, the water runs through them and outside, without creating any damage inside your home.
- Have an expert plumber or technician check your roof – to make sure there is proper insulation and also that any water tanks on the roof are in good order. That will make sure that, in the event of heavy rainfall, insulation shall do its job and do everything, and that your water tanks shall retain all water, without any impact inside your home.
- You might want to ask the said expert to check on any mildew/ mucus gathered up on the top on your ceilings, those are always excluded under any Policy. Those are often gradually created in an old building, and worsening in the event of bad craftmanship when building it. It is always a good idea to check out your home for dangers hiding behind a naked eye!
- If the plumber is there- you might want to make him check if you have any water that is “suspicious”, so that may check whether you have an old pipe inside your walls, wearing away due to age. All policies may cover burst pipes – but not their deterioration.
- If you have trees in your garden, it is worth checking them out from time to time, check if they are upright enough, or better yet, have a gardener do a check. If their inclination is not good, you want to avoid a “falling trees” scenario, which might lead to loss or damage- that may or may not be covered by your insurance.
- As general advice – do yearly checks on your home, summon plumbers, mechanics and other experts. In the long run, you might save a lot of trouble having to “deal” with your Insurance Company.
- Having said that – RCI is always at your disposal to suggest, advise and appoint expert professionals to assess any damage caused and analyse causes and perils and compensation amounts.
