Home Insurance

The policy provides cover as standard for damage to your property from the following eventualities:

• Fire, explosion, lightning, earthquake and smoke damage
• Storm and flood damage
• Riot, civil commotion, strikes, labour and political disturbances
• Damage by malicious persons or vandals
• Collision by aircraft or other aerial devices, vehicles and animals (not including domestic pets)
• Theft or attempted theft from the home
• Falling radio and TV aerials
• Subsidence, heave or landslide
• Damage caused by falling trees or branches
• Escape of water
• Leakage of heating fuel

Norwich Union can provide home contents cover for sums between £15,000 and £100,000 (depending on the area where you live – call us on freephone 0800 068 5984 if you would like more details, calls may be recorded and/or monitored).

Cover is provided on a “New for old” basis, which means that any items which are lost, stolen or damaged beyond repair (excluding clothing and linen) are replaced with brand new items of the same specification: removing all the hassle of sourcing replacements.

Our home contents insurance provides accidental damage cover to audiovisual equipment and fixed glass as standard, so, for example, if your Wii controller flies out of your hand and damages the tv, you're covered! Items covered as standard include:

• Televisions (including digital boxes and satellite receivers)
• Desktop computers (laptops are covered under the Extra Accidental Damage cover option)
• Games consoles (does not include portable games consoles designed to be used outside the home, e.g. PlayStation Portable)
• Audio equipment

Our home buildings insurance provides accidental damage cover for any fixed glass or bathroom fittings in your home, so if you crack the sink or break the toilet cistern accidentally, you're covered! Items included as standard include:

• Baths and showers
• Sinks
• Toilets and bidets

Norwich Union provide £6,000 of cover for valuables as standard. We consider valuables to be items such as:

• Stamp, coin or medal collections
• Paintings, pictures or other works of art
• Items of gold, silver or other precious metal, jewellery, watches and furs
• Antiques (not including furniture) and collectables

As standard, we'll pay up to £1,500 for a single item. If you have any individual items which are worth more than £1,500 these will need to be specified. Please call us on 0800 068 3662 if you need to specify any items (calls may be recorded and/or monitored).

We cover cash in your home up to a value of £250. For insurance purposes, we would also class the following as cash, and pay out in the event of loss or damage:

• Travel tickets
• Gift vouchers
• Season tickets
• Phone cards

Our contents insurance provides cover of up to £1,500 for the contents of your garage or any outbuildings on your property. If your garage is integral to the property, then the contents are covered up to your total sum insured.

This cover applies to theft claims only; we pay up to the sum insured for any other types of claims e.g. fire

This feature provides cover up to a standard limit of £250 for contents in the garden, such as furniture or washing left on the line, in the event of fire, malicious damage, collision or lightning.

Please see Norwich Union Home Insurance policy wording for full details and exclusions.

If your keys are lost or stolen and you believe that your home is in danger, Norwich Union will pay for the locks on your home to be replaced as a precautionary measure. We also cover the replacement of any keys for alarm systems as standard.

Up to £400 is provided as standard to cover the spoilage of food in the freezer due to the power being disconnected accidentally or due to a power shortage.

If either your water system or heating fuel tank become damaged and you accidentally lose metered water or fuel, we will pay out up to £1,000 to ensure that you're not out of pocket.

If your home is rendered uninhabitable as the result of a claim, we'll ensure that you and your loved ones are provided with suitable alternative accommodation for the duration of the claim: up to a total of £6,000 for contents insurance or 20% of your total sum insured for buildings.

Moving house can be a stressful business, but we ensure that the process is as painless as possible by providing cover for your possessions. This feature of our home insurance policy includes:

Cover for your contents while being moved by professional removers from your existing home to your new permanent home (including temporary storage in a furniture depository for up to 7 days).

Please note this cover only applies if both your existing and new home are insured with us.

Limits and exclusions apply; please read the Home insurance policy information document for full details.

If there's a water leak causing damage to your home we'll pay up to £5,000 to uncover the source of the leak and make good afterwards.

Liability insurance provides cover for your legal liability to third parties. This usually applies to accidents resulting in injury to people or damage to property. This means that if you cause damage to a third party and/or their property and are held legally liable, the third party will receive financial compensation.

Occupiers liability provides cover of up to £2,000,000 to cover your responsibility as the occupier of your house. Cover is provided if:

• Anyone is accidentally injured or falls ill, such as a tile falling off your roof and injuring someone
• Property is accidentally lost or damaged, such as the same tile damaging a friend or neighbour's car

Employer's liability gives you up to £10m protection if a domestic employee, such as a gardener or cleaner, has an accident or becomes ill while working for you and you are legally responsible to pay damages.

This gives you up to £2m protection if someone is injured, falls ill or their property is damaged at the insured building and you are legally responsible, as the owner of the property, to pay damages.

Please note that accidents which happen in buildings or on land are nearly always the responsibility of the occupier rather than the owner. If you are both the owner and the occupier of the building, to protect yourself you will also need to arrange contents insurance which provides occupier's liability cover.

In addition to our standard contents accidental damage cover, we offer the option to extend your home insurance policy to provide total peace of mind and cover accidental damage for most of the possessions in your home (apart from clothing, contact lenses or pedal cycles). Specific incidents covered include:

• Spilling paint on your carpet
• Spilling coffee or red wine on your sofa
• Dropping ornaments or breakables
• Accidentally breaking or damaging furniture

We also provide the option to extend our standard buildings accidental damage cover to the rest of your buildings to cover incidents such as:

• Putting your foot through a ceiling
• Hitting a nail into a water pipe

These options are available for an additional premium.

Norwich Union is unusual amongst home insurers in that we not only reward you for not claiming on your home insurance policy, we also provide the option to protect your No Claims Discount as you would with your car insurance.

Additional personal belongings cover insures your personal effects while in and away from your home. This cover is provided both in the UK and anywhere else in the world. We'll cover you for:

• Clothing and personal effects up to your chosen limit. This can range between £2,000 and £6,000 for online quotes. If you require cover for higher sums of up to £10,000 please call us on 0800 068 5984 and speak to one of our specialist advisers (calls may be recorded and/or monitored).
• Single items up to a value of £1,500. Any single items worth more than this should be specified on your home insurance policy - please call us on 0800 068 5984 and speak to one of our specialist advisers (calls may be recorded and/or monitored).
• Personal money up to a value of £250.
• Credit cards up to a value of £1,000

For just £18.50 a year we can provide 24 hour, 365 days a year access to a helpline and claims service, where legal professionals can provide you with free and confidential legal advice.

We also provide £50,000 in legal costs to pursue or defend your case in court in a wide range of situations:

• Property disputes such as a noisy neighbour or boundary dispute
• Employment disputes such as unfair dismissal or discrimination on the grounds of sex, race or disability.
• Personal injury - injury at work or accidental injury while out and about. Also covers clinical negligence.
• Contract disputes such as the purchase of a faulty car or a negligently performed service
• Personal residence disputes

We consider this cover to be so valuable that we default it to be included in your quote as standard. If you already have independent legal advice, then simply remove it to reduce your premium.

If you're proud of your garden then our standard contents in the garden cover may not be sufficient. Selecting this additional upgrade increases your cover from £250 to £1,250 for contents in your garden such as garden furniture or children's toys.

We also provide cover of up to £2,500 for re-landscaping if your garden is damaged by causes such as fire, theft or malicious damage etc.

Home emergency cover is an invaluable option for any homeowner. For just £54 per year we can provide the peace of mind that when a domestic emergency occurs in your home, a reliable tradesman will visit your home to carry out emergency repairs - normally the same day!

Repairs are covered up to a value of £500, and emergency situations covered include:

• Loss of your main source of heating or hot water
• Blocked toilet waste pipes
• Blocked drains
• Plumbing problems such as leaking pipes, water tanks or leaking radiators
• Sudden and unexpected roofing problems

There is no excess to pay for any home emergency cover claims too!

Cycles are covered under our standard Contents policy within your shed, garage or home (but not your garden).

If you wish to cover your pedal cycle(s) away from home, we offer a pedal cycles option which covers each of your family's cycles up to your chosen limit (between £300 and £1,500). Cycles are covered while anywhere in the world.

This cover is not available online: if you would like a quote for including additional "pedal cycle" cover, please call us freephone on 0800 068 5984 (calls may be recorded and/or monitored)