So, you are a proud owner or a tenant of a home in sunny Spain. Spanish property is certainly a great investment in your lifestyle. Experience shows that spending time in Spain contributes to reducing stress levels and creating a positive mood! 🙂 In order to guarantee your carefree stay in Spain, it is important that your home is properly protected from eventual problems that may arise. A good home insurance (seguro de hogar) it there to assist you.
What can be insured?
First, the building (continente) or, in other words, the structural elements of your home. The following example is the easiest way to explain what exactly is considered as a building. Imagine that some unknown power has turned your house upside down. Everything that stays in its place without giving in to the force of gravity (walls, floors, communications, etc.), is considered as “continente”.
Second, the contents (сontenido), that is, all your personal belongings in the house: furniture, appliances, clothes, jewellery, etc.
Third, the last but not the least, is your civil liability (responsabilidad civil), that is, damage that you may unintentionally cause to third parties.
When you take out an insurance, it is essential to determine correctly the insured amounts of these 3 blocks in order to guarantee adequate payments in case of the insured event and avoid unpleasant surprises. When you apply for the policy to Just Insurance, our experts will guide you on the assessment of the insured property and assure assistance in calculations of the correct insured amounts.
Each home insurance contract defines the risks against which your house or apartment is actually insured within the specified amounts. Depending on the list of risks included in the insurance contract, you can guarantee yourself various levels of protection.
The basic insurance covers a very limited list of risks. Normally, it is covering fire, broken glass (often the limits of the maximum compensation are applied), some types of water damage, power outages. The restrictions imposed by the basic policy are quite significant and sometimes make it difficult to claim an adequate compensation for the actual damage caused to your home. For example, basic insurance will not cover damage from an internal short circuit or from leaks without breaking pipes.
We recommend to contract policies with more extensive coverage; in different companies such insurance policies have different names, for example, standard, plus, extra. Usually, such policies contain more benefits and much broader list of insured risks: from burglary (including when it comes to jewellery) and theft to aesthetic damage to your property caused by an insured event. Moreover, the insured sums in such policies usually are significantly higher and correspond better to the real needs in the event of an insured event.
The best insurance companies do not limit to covering a fixed list of risks and offer their clients comprehensive insurance policies against all accidental damage risk. Such insurance means that if the damage was caused by an accidental event not directly specified in the policy, but at the same time not deliberately excluded from the list of coverages according to the general terms and conditions of the insurance company, the insurer compensates the damage. As a general rule, the payment implies an excess, which means the damage is compensated with a deduction of the excess amount fixed by the contract. This type of insurance provides maximum protection for your home and allows you to compensate for various types of accidental damage, including repairing a broken mobile phone that you accidentally swept off the desk.
When you live in your house or apartment permanently, you should indicate that this is your main residence to get the most extensive coverage at the best price.
When the house is only used for a short period of time and stays unoccupied for most time of the year, it should be insured as a secondary residence, which will allow you to contact the insurance company even if you find the problem only when you arrive on holiday after a long time after the insured event.
If you are renting out your house or apartment, you must indicate it in your policy in order to cover your civil liability as a landlord. The point is that the concept of civil liability covered by the insurance policy varies depending on the mode of use of your property: civil liability coverage offered by the insurance company in case you live in the house as an owner and in case you rent it out differs. Moreover, a policy designed especially for renting out may include some extra coverage very practical for the homeowner, i.e. damage caused by acts vandalism of tenants and non-payment of rent.
If you live in a rented house, you can insure your personal belongings and your civil liability in order to feel safe and secure, without overpaying for covering the risks which are beyond your responsibility, in particular the building that does not belong to you and, in most cases, is already insured by the landlord.
In our blog we will tell you more about the features of each type of home insurance, local peculiarities and extra service you can receive with a good policy. Subscribe to Just Insurance page on Facebook to make sure you don’t miss a thing!
When drawing up the policy special attention should be paid to the way the house is used. The mode of use affects both the insurance coverage that the insurance company is ready to offer you, and the amounts that it is advisable to insure.
