Winter weather can take a real toll on your home, with frozen pipes in particular often causing a serious amount of damage if they end up bursting.
It’s natural to assume that your home insurance will pay out if your property is damaged due to a burst pipe, but make sure your policy small print doesn’t catch you out.
For most of us, the whole point of buying household insurance is to make sure you’ll be covered if you need to make a claim. But most policies aren’t like that. They’ll cover you for specific problems that are laid out in the contract (that’s the lengthy policy document). If you don’t meet those – for example, you haven’t maintained your property properly, the policy won’t pay out. It’s worth making sure that you know what your home policy will cover you for, especially if you’re thinking of going away for a winter break.
Do insurers cover frozen pipes?
If you have a burst pipe or water tank in your house, most home insurance policies say they will pay out as long as you haven’t been negligent. But they don’t all provide the same level of cover.
Some policies don’t cover all outside pipes. With certain policies, if you have a burst external pipe (such as a garden or garage tap) it will only be covered if the pipe starts inside your house – such as in the kitchen. Other policies are more generous and cover all pipes that are situated within your boundary.
Check your cover to see where you stand while you’re away from your home. Most insurance policies will insist that the heating is left on or that the heating system is drained if you’re away for a long period of time. Check what counts as a ‘long period of time’. Insurers can refuse to pay if this condition isn’t met.
Check the excess levels. The excess is the portion of any insurance claim you must pay yourself. Some insurers impose a higher excess for water damage and escape.
Do you have home emergency cover? This type of cover, as its name suggests, is designed to help people who have been affected by an emergency such as a burst pipe or a broken boiler to make their home safe again or get their heating going. According to research by financial information business Defaqto, of the 390 home contents insurance policies currently on the market, about a fifth (21%) include cover for home emergencies as standard, while only a quarter of the 371 buildings insurance policies on the market include it as standard. Half of all contents and buildings insurance policies currently on the market offer home emergency cover as an optional add-on. If your policy doesn’t, and you’re worried about pipes freezing or other home emergencies this winter, you might want to consider buying a standalone home emergency policy.
If, once you’ve checked your home insurance policy, you’re unhappy with the level of cover provided, and your policy is up for renewal soon, you can compare quotes and switch online using our home insurance comparison tool.
Compare home insurance quotes
Home insurance renewal premiums increase every year, even if you haven’t made a claim. Compare deals from over 50 UK providers now and you could pay less than £201* on your home insurance deal.
*51% of consumers could save £201.06 on their Home Building & Contents Insurance. The saving was calculated by comparing the cheapest price found with the average of the next fourteen cheapest prices quoted by insurance providers on Seopa Ltd’s insurance comparison website. This is based on representative cost savings from January 2024. The savings you could achieve are dependent on your individual circumstances.
Ways to prevent your pipes freezing
The Association of British Insurers (ABI), the trade body for the insurance industry, has the following tips for those wanting to reduce the risk of pipes freezing:
- When the weather is cold, keep your heating on at regular intervals and set it on a timer if you’re going away
- Make sure that water pipes and water tanks in the loft are insulated with good quality lagging
- Know where your stopcock that turns off the incoming water supply is, and make sure that it works
- Repair any dripping taps
- Make sure you have the emergency contact details for your insurance provider or emergency plumber to hand in case you need them.
If your pipes do freeze:
- Turn water off at the main stopcock straight away. You may want to try and thaw the pipes with a hot water bottle
- If a pipe has burst, turn off the water at the stopcock, switch off the central heating and any other water heating installations. Open all taps to drain the system
- Contact your insurance company helpline for help and advice, including arranging for professional repairs to be carried out.