To begin your search for the most suitable home insurance, you should first decide on the type of home insurance policy that suits your needs. Whether you are a homeowner, a tenant or a landlord, think about what you want to protect. AXA offers different NI home insurance options to suit homeowners' specific requirements and lifestyles. Depending on the level of cover you need, you can choose between Buildings Insurance, Contents Insurance or our most comprehensive cover - Buildings & Contents Insurance.
What does home insurance cover?
What is protected by your home insurance policy depends on the type of home insurance you decide to avail of. At AXA NI, we have three main home insurance policies for you to choose from:
Buildings insurance
This will provide you with insurance protection for the physical buildings of your home, including outhouses and sheds. It also provides you with cover for the permanent fixtures within your home, including kitchen and bathroom fittings. Buildings insurance also covers damage to your underground services, windows, and escaped water from fixtures like kitchen pipes.
Contents insurance
Contents only insurance protects your personal belongings within the home. This is ideally suited to those who rent their homes, as it only provides cover for your owned possessions, such as your furniture, clothing, electrical goods etc. It does not provide insurance protection for the building.
Buildings & Contents insurance
This is the highest level of home insurance available, combining both buildings and content insurance in one. As well as the coverage detailed above, it also offers protection for your assets against storm, theft, flood, water or fire damage, falling trees or branches, subsidence and much more.
If you’re still not sure, you can see a full list of home insurance benefits to compare the details of each.
How do I know how much to insure my home for?
When you have decided on the type of home insurance you want, you then need to work out how much you should insure your home for. With buildings insurance, for example, you need to calculate the cost of rebuilding your house and the building should be of standard construction and used for domestic purposes only. Make use of the BCIS Rebuilding Cost Calculator to help estimate this cost.
If you’re opting for contents insurance, you’ll need to estimate what it would cost to replace your valued contents in the event of theft or accidental damage. With this estimation, you can determine how much your possessions should be insured for.
Using this information, AXA can then insure your property, your contents, or both, at a level that covers these costs to ensure you are fully protected.
Is there a way to lower my home insurance premium?
We strive to ensure that our customers always get the optimal price for their home insurance and help our customers spread out the cost by paying in monthly instalments if they wish. Beyond this, we also have a few ways to help you get the most suitable and most affordable insurance.
AXA Discounts
The first option is to avail of the different discounts that we offer on home insurance. We give a 10% discount to customers with a working intruder alarm and to those with an existing AXA car insurance policy. We also offer a no claims discount of up to 35% depending on your no claims record.
Increase Your Excess, Decrease Your Premium
Another way to lower your home insurance premium is by increasing your excess. In doing so, the amount you’ll be required to pay in the event of an incident in your home (before we pay the rest), will increase. Our standard home insurance excess fee is £100 (unless otherwise shown on the policy schedule so please ensure you read all information in these documents). In summary, if you increase your excess amount, AXA will reduce the premium amount for your home insurance policy.
Can I get optional extras on my home insurance?
To build an insurance policy that further suits your needs, we offer customers a range of optional add-ons. These include accidental damage cover, which helps to protect your home against accidents such as paint spilling. Personal Accident cover provides cover for you, your partner and children under 18 in the event that they are injured within your home. For information on these and other optional extras, please refer to your policy documents.
How can I renew my home insurance?
Every year, before your policy term expires, we send a reminder letter to renew your home insurance. Renewal time is the ideal moment to review and update your policy where necessary and continue getting the level of cover you need. To renew your home insurance, simply log in to your MyAXA account and follow the steps online. Alternatively, if you call our home insurance team on 02890 020104, they will guide you through the process.
How can I report a home insurance claim?
To report a home insurance claim in NI, log in to your MyAXA account and select ‘Make a Claim’. If you don’t have a MyAXA account, you can still report the claim online by filling out the AXA home insurance claim form. Once the claim has been reported we will contact you to update you on its progress.
When you take out a building’s insurance policy with us, you automatically get access to our 24/7 AXA Emergency Home Assistance. With this service, if you experience a minor emergency, such as a damaged roof, we will send out one of our AXA-approved tradesmen to temporarily fix the issue so that you can permanently repair the issue with your usual tradesperson at a later time. You can avail of up to four callouts per year, free of charge and without impacting your home insurance premium. It is highly important to read your policy documents to understand this service.
Depending on your policy and the nature of the event, if your home has been deemed unfit to be lived in due to the damage, we can help with the cost of similar alternative accommodation while your home is being repaired*.
Is home insurance compulsory?
Unlike car insurance, you are under no legal obligation to have home insurance. However, if you have a mortgage on your home, many mortgage providers may insist that you insure the building against unforeseen incidents such as fire or flood damage. If you don’t have a mortgage, it is still recommended that you avail of home insurance in order to protect your home in the event of an insured loss. Home insurance helps to give you peace of mind when a loss which you are covered for occurs.
*Terms and conditions apply. Please refer to your policy documents for full information on your entitlements and inclusions.
