What is Accidental Damage cover?

Accidents can and do happen, and they’re not always hassle-free to recover from. Even comparatively small accidents could cause a noticeable unexpected cost. If one of your reasons for taking out home insurance is the peace of mind that things like this will be sorted without the stress, then accidental damage cover might be a good option for you.

What is ‘accidental damage’?

For our home policies, it’s defined as ‘sudden, unexpected and visible damage which has not been caused on purpose.’ This is different from ‘wear and tear’ or breakdown, which would occur normally over time and are therefore not in the scope of standard insurance. In practice, this means that a lot of different scenarios could be covered under this definition.

Examples of things that are likely to be covered

Under your Contents section of cover:

• Knocking a TV over
• Spilling wine on your sofa
• Sitting on your glasses and breaking them

Under your Buildings section of cover:

• A pebble flying out of your lawnmower and smashing a window
• Putting your foot through the ceiling while in the loft
• Knocking something off a shelf and cracking a sink

Things that are typically not covered:

• Your computer crashes because it’s very old
• Damage caused by animals, like a pet chewing furniture
• Poor workmanship or design

What about away from home?

Unless you’ve also got cover for personal belongings away from home, you’ll only be covered for accidental damage to contents if you’re within your property. That means that things like mobile phones and other portable electronic devices may still be covered, but only if the accident happens at home. If the type of accidents you were wanting to be protected from are away from home, then make sure you look at taking out personal belongings cover as well.

Do I need accidental damage cover?

This really depends on what you’d want to claim for. If you’d be happy replacing or repairing items yourself if they got accidentally damaged, then you might not need it and can save the money. However, if you’d rather save the time and hassle, then adding on this common optional extra may be a smart move. Just remember to consider your policy excess as well to make sure it’s in line with what you’d want to claim for. After all, there’s no point taking out a higher voluntary excess to lower your premium if you’d really want to claim for a broken object that might only cost a few hundred pounds to replace.

Check your policy to see what’s included as standard

While most providers offer accidental damage cover as an optional extra, some insurers may offer some cover as standard, with the optional extra being an ‘enhanced’ version.

This is the case at coverbaloo, where you’ll get accidental damage cover to fixtures and fittings under Buildings and TV/video/audio equipment under Contents as standard within your policy even if you don’t take out the additional cover.

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