Guide to high-value home insurance in the UK
Owning a high-value, listed, or architecturally unique home comes with its own unique set of risks that standard home insurance won’t always cover. If your property has historic features, a high rebuild cost, or houses valuable items or collections, standard home insurance policies will likely fail to provide you with adequate protection.
By
Mark Linehan
In this guide, we take a close look at the circumstances in which you may want to consider high-value home insurance, what this type of insurance is, and what protection it offers.
Do you need high-value home insurance?
To decide whether you need high-value home insurance, you need to consider the type and value of your property, as well as its contents. While your circumstances will be unique, you may need specialist cover in the following instances:
A high rebuild cost. The cost to completely rebuild your home (not the market value) exceeds £1million.
An unusual property. Listed buildings, those with unique architectural features, or those built with specialist materials often require high-value home insurance (or listed buildings insurance). This is because they need specialist trades and methods to repair or rebuild them. These can be very expensive, especially if skills or materials are scarce.
Luxury features. Properties with expensive amenities such as swimming pools, home cinemas, or gyms may exceed standard insurance cover limits.
High-value contents. If you have valuable contents such as art, jewellery, collectables or antiques, you may need high-value home insurance. As a rule of thumb, you’ll need this cover if your contents are valued at more than £150,000 overall, or you have one or more individual items worth over £15,000 each.
In short, insurers consider your property high-value if its structure, contents, or both require tailored cover that goes beyond a standard building insurance or contents insurance policy.
Rebuild cost vs. market value
If you’ve purchased a property for £1.5million, it may seem logical to insure it for the same value, increasing cover each year to match any increase in house prices.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always correct. You should insure your home for the cost of rebuilding it, and many homes (especially high-value ones) cost more to completely rebuild than they do to purchase. Equally, some homes (for example, new builds) can cost less to rebuild than their market value.
So why might the rebuild cost be higher than the market price? If your home was gutted by fire and needed to be completely rebuilt from scratch, to rebuild and restore it as it was, you’d need to budget for a range of costs that can fluctuate according to demand, availability, and inflation. These include:
Demolition, site clearance, and disposal
Removal of any hazardous materials, such as asbestos
Groundwork
Professional fees, including those for surveyors and architects
Materials and labour for rebuilding
Alternative accommodation for the duration of the rebuild
The more expensive it is to build your home, the greater the disparity between market value and rebuild cost can be. This is particularly the case if you own a listed or period building, one with unusual architectural features, or your property is in a conservation area. To rebuild these, you may need to hire specialist craftspeople such as stonemasons, thatchers, heritage bricklayers, leadworkers, or blacksmiths. The skills of some of these experts come at a significant premium, which can quickly push up rebuilding costs.
For these reasons, it’s important to get an accurate rebuild cost from a chartered surveyor when you first take out high-value home insurance.
Why you need to avoid underinsurance of high-value homes
If you make a claim, being underinsured can be an expensive mistake. This is because some insurance policies include a provision known as the ‘average clause’. This means that if you insure your home for less than the rebuild value, your insurer may only pay out a proportion of your claim.
This will depend on what you’re claiming for. If you’re claiming for a partial loss, for example, storm damage to your roof, your insurer may reduce your payout by the percentage by which you’re underinsured. If you’re claiming for a total rebuild of your property, your insurer may only give you the value of the sum insured.
Your valuable contents
If you have valuable contents in your home, a standard home contents policy almost certainly won’t meet your needs. This is because these policies aren’t designed with fine art, antiques, luxury jewellery, and similar items in mind.
The advantage of a high-value home policy is that you can easily tailor it to properly cover your contents, including theft and repair insurance for art and valuables.
When arranging your cover, some key terms worth knowing are:
Unspecified items. For items like jewellery, your policy will have an unspecified items limit - this is the maximum amount your insurer would payout if you made a claim for multiple items of jewellery. Within this, there will be limits for specified items – this is the maximum amount the insurer will payout for a specific item (up to the unspecified item limit).
Specified items. For items like fine art and collectables, you’ll normally be required to get a valuation, which will then determine the item's insured value. If you make a claim, your insurer will pay out the valuation amount.
All-risks worldwide cover. This extends protection for all your contents and valuables anywhere in the world. This is particularly useful if you have multiple properties and you move items between them depending on where you’re living.
Be sure to discuss these options with your insurer when you take out a high-value home insurance policy.
Your high-value home insurance provider
Choosing the right broker or insurer is about more than comparing premiums: it’s about expertise, service, and discretion.
We understand that exceptional service and dependability are key requirements for our clients, so we take great pride in our personal approach to service. Each of our Private Clients has a dedicated key contact, supported by a team of passionate and knowledgeable individuals. Our advice is tailored to your individual risks. By taking the time to understand your home and your lifestyle fully, we can confidently recommend the cover you need. These include:
Dedicated claims handlers specialising in high-value buildings and contents.
Recommendations for appraisal services to assess building and contents values accurately.
Discretion and personal service, which means you can rely on us to handle sensitive matters with care.
Experience in insuring high-value homes of all kinds, from listed buildings to bespoke buildings commissioned from exclusive architects.
Need help with your insurance?
High-value home insurance is not just a standard policy with higher limits: it’s a bespoke service designed to give you certainty and peace of mind when it comes to protecting irreplaceable homes and possessions.
By understanding rebuild costs, valuing your contents properly and working with a specialist provider, you can ensure that your home and your collections are fully protected.