Five Things You Need to Know If You’re Building a Home

The decision to build your own home is an exciting one. Not only do you get to decide where to build, but you also get to determine where on the property the house will stand and how it will be integrated with the landscape.

However, such freedom of choice comes at a cost: the burden of being properly insured lies much more on a homeowner building from scratch than on the buyer of a pre-built house. Working with a contractor can relieve some of this pressure, but even with a contractor’s help there are five things every home builder should know about insurance before starting construction on a new home.

1. Often homeowners insurance alone is insufficient for the construction of a new house.

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Focus on: New car insurance for young drivers

While the fuel duty reduction announced in the Budget may have brought some relief to young drivers, for many the cost of motoring remains unaffordable due to steep insurance premiums. Motorists in their teens or early twenties pay substantially higher premiums than older drivers because they are considered higher risk by insurers. According to the Driving Standards Agency, in the UK, an 18-year-old driver is more than three times as likely to be involved in a crash as a 48-year-old.

But now The Co-operative Insurance has become the latest insurer to launch a policy specifically for young drivers, which promises lower premiums if the policyholder can demonstrate that they are responsible on the roads.

Here, we look at how the policy works and whether it could be right for you…

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Landlords warned to examine insurance policies as residential cannibis farming increases

As the level of residential cannibis farming rises, Aviva is warning landlords to be extra vigilant.

There has been a 30 per cent year-on-year increase in claims relating to cannibis farming, according to a report from the insurer, which is consistent with a Home Office report that reveals there was an increase of 18 per cent in the number of cannibis plants seized in 2009/10 compared with 2008/9.

Matthew Gordon, underwriting manager, property owners, at Aviva said: “Despite the upgrade of cannabis to a class B drug two years ago the industry continues to grow. Read more…

A standard home insurance policy may not cover fine and rare wines

People who want to invest in fine and rare wines are being urged to make sure they have the right insurance cover in place.

Fine and rare wines will not generally be covered by a typical standard home insurance policy and will require specialist insurance, perhaps taken out as part of a high net worth home insurance, or as a separate policy, depending on the value of the collection.

Physical security has to be considered as a valuable collection could become a key target for thieves. The wine also needs to be valued, which may be a value for the whole collection, or if there are some high value individual bottles of wine, these will need to specifically referenced within the insurance policy. Read more…