Your home is your castle – we’ll help you protect it (2024)

Your home is your castle – we’ll help you protect it

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What is buildings insurance?

Our Buildings Insurance protects the structure of your home and any permanent fixtures from damage. So, it can look after your walls and the pipes behind them, to the roof and windows. And things you can’t easily remove, like a fitted kitchen or toilet. We’ll even pay to rebuild your house completely if it’s ever needed. You can also tweak your policy with add-ons like accidental damage and legal services cover.

Unlimited sum insured

There’s no limit to the overall amount we’ll cover your property for^{Footnote [1]}
Alternative accommodation

If the damage is covered by your insurance, we'll pay for alternative accommodation up to the value of £100,000 until your home is okay to live inagain^{Footnote [2]}
Finding and fixing leaks

If there’s a water leak causing damage to your home, we’ll cover up to£5,000to hunt down the problem and fix it

Get a quote

You can take out our Buildings Insurance on its own, or together with our Contents Insurance as a completeHome Insurancepackage.

Who needs buildings insurance?

If you own a property you should think about getting buildings insurance. You don’t legally need to have it, but if you have a mortgage your provider may insist that you do.

If your property is a house, then it’s up to you to get buildings insurance. If it’s a leasehold flat, this means the building itself is owned by the freeholder and it’s their responsibility. The cost of this buildings insurance will often be part of your service charge. However, if you own the freehold, or you're part of a committee that owns it, you’ll need to sort out the buildings insurance.

Buildings insurance can be there for you if things like fire, theft, flooding or extreme weather damage the structure of your home or any of the permanent fixtures. For example, if a storm blows the tiles off your roof, or a burst pipe causes it to rain in your bathroom. Buildings insurance can help pay to fix the problem so your bank balance doesn’t take a battering.

If you’re a landlord

Our Home Insurance for landlords covers the cost of rebuilds and repairs if your property is damaged. So you and your tenants can get back to normal as quickly as possible.

Explore Landlord Insurance "Explore Landlord Insurance"

If you’re a tenant

Check with your landlord what home insurance they already have. If they have buildings insurance, you probably only need cover to protect your prized possessions. Take a look at our tenants and renters insurance.

Explore contents insurance for tenants "Explore contents insurance for tenants"

Working out how much to insure your building for

If you’re wondering how much buildings insurance you need, it’s all about the rebuild value. Which basically means calculating how much it would cost to completely rebuild your property. This is the ‘sum insured’.

The rebuild cost isn’t the same as the price you paid for the property, or how much it’s worth. Normally it’s less than either of these because it doesn’t include the value of the land.

With our Buildings Insurance we offer an unlimited buildings sum insured, so for most homes you won’t need to give us a rebuild value when getting a quote.^{Footnote [1]}

Do you already have home insurance with us?

Knowledge centre

Browse through our reading list of articles in your own time and start building the foundations in your home insurance knowledge.

Find out more

What our Buildings Insurance covers

We cover the structure of your property against damage caused by things like fires, storms or burglars. Permanent fixtures like kitchen surfaces and built-in wardrobes are also covered, as are driveways and patios.

What’s covered

Cover for damage, subsidence, and even lost keys.

Damage to the structure of your home

Caused by events such as fire, flooding and theft
We also cover subsidence, heave of land and landslip

Damage to garages and outbuildings

The structure of your garage and any domestic outbuildings are covered as standard
We’ll also cover swimming pools, ponds and fountains, hard courts, terraces, and patios

Cost of alternative accommodation (including loss of rent)

We’ll pay for accommodation if your home can’t be lived in due to damage covered by your policy
And if you’re a landlord we’ll pay you for lost rent

Cover for matching items

We'll cover the cost of replacing any undamaged items in a set or suite, such as tiles, basins, and fitted furniture, if we're unable to provide an exact match (up to buildings limits), conditions apply

Replacement locks and keys

What’s not covered

Unfortunately, we can’t cover everything – make sure you’re happy with what’s not covered, including:

Wear and tear
Wet rot, dry rot or frost damage
Fences, gates or hedges damaged in a storm
Claims for poor workmanship or faulty design

Take a look at our policy wording for full details of what's not covered.

Read our policy wording (PDF 347 KB)

A buildings insurance quote in three easy steps

You can get a quote for our Buildings Insurance in three simple steps. We’ll ask:

for your personal details, such as your name and address
what type of cover you want, when you want it to start and about any previous claims
if you want to change your excess or include any optional add-ons

Ready to get cover?

Simply select the cover you want when you get your quote.

Important documents

If you already have insurance with us, you'll find the documents for your policy inMyAviva.

Insurance product information document(PDF 75.6 KB)

Home Emergency Cover policy (PDF 295 KB)

Legal Services policy wording (PDF 219.9 KB)

Insurance policy wording (PDF 316.8 KB)

Home summary of benefits (PDF 90.3 KB)

Important information document (PDF 200.1 KB)

Policy add-ons

Tweak your policy with our add-ons and bump up the cover for your home and contents if you need to.

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Accidental damage

Choose between two levels of cover, either ‘extra’ and ‘limited’, to protect items in your home from accidental damage, such as your home entertainment equipment.

Read about accidental damage about Accidental damage

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Protected No Claim Discount

Protect your No Claim Discount (NCD) and you can make up to two claims in five years without losing any of your hard-earned NCD.

Read about Protected No Claim Discount about Protected No Claim Discount

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Legal services

Get expert legal advice for a range of issues, from employment law to property disputes, with our 24-hour legal helpline and up to £100,000 in legal costs per claim for you, your domestic partner, and any family members living with you.

Read about legal services about Legal services

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Home emergency

Get protected if the unexpected happens at your home, for example, if your heating breaks down. Cover for labour, parts, and materials if there’s an emergency.

Read about home emergency about Home emergency

The cost of buildings insurance

Just like mixing a co*cktail, a little bit of this and a little bit of that goes into deciding how much you pay for buildings insurance.

Some factors are to do with you, like where you live or any past claims you’ve had. Others are to do with what’s happening in the wider world or insurance market. For example, if the weather has been wild and windy recently or there has been a rise in claims overall.

For more information about how we calculate your buildings insurance price, see our home insurance price explained page.

How our claims process works

Whatever happens, we’re here when you need us – online and over the phone.

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Step 1 of 3

Keep your documents handy

To make a claim, you’ll need your insurance policy number, any photos of the lost or damaged items (if you have them), and any related receipts, quotes or invoices.

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Step 2 of 3

Let us know

You can make a claim over the phone or online if you’re registered for MyAviva.

If there’s been an emergency, eg your home isn’t secure after a break-in or it’s not safe to stay there following damage, get in touch with us as soon as you can.