There are lots of different providers and policies vary in price and what they’ll cover. Generally, the rule of thumb when it comes to working out what is covered by your buildings cover it’s anything that would stay put if you turned the whole house upside down.

Plumbing, windows, walls, ceilings, electrics etc are all typically covered; your fridge freezer, table and chairs on the other hand – not covered.

Buildings insurance comes into its own when your property suffers damage, usually through no fault of your own. The most typical claims on buildings insurance include things such as burst pipes causing flood damage to your property and neighbours’ properties, fire, subsidence causing structural damage, storm damage and flooding.

These events may not occur every day but when they do, the damage caused is usually expensive to fix, running into tens of thousands of pounds in the worse scenarios.

In the same way buildings insurance covers everything that would stay put if you turned the house upside down, contents covers everything that would move. This is particularly important if you suffer a fire as if you had no contents insurance and only buildings cover, the latter would rebuild the property but you would have no possessions to put inside it and no payout for those that you lost.

Many people choose to take contents cover for slightly less than the full value of their possessions but this means that should you need to claim for everything, when you reached your policy limit, that’s all you’ll be entitled to.

Most things are covered on a generic contents policy, although if you have individual items worth £5,000 or more – a watch or painting for example – then these may have to be named on the policy specifically.

For help finding the right buildings and contents insurance for you, speak to one of our advisers now.