When you buy a home with a mortgage, there is a stipulation from the mortgage lender that you must have sufficient buildings insurance in place.
The only exception to this is if you are buying a property that is Leasehold, as the landlord should pay for buildings insurance, although you’ll probably find that this is paid for from part of your service charge.
The reason for this is that they want to know that should anything happen to the property (fire, subsidence, natural disaster etc), the insurance would pay out for it to be put right and this therefore protects the mortgage lenders assets (because until you pay your mortgage off, part of it belongs to the mortgage lender). It’s important to note that this insurance needs to be in place from the point of exchanging contracts.
There is no legal requirement to have house insurance (although you will require buildings insurance if you have a mortgage), however you should think about what would happen if you were burgled, had a flood or a fire, how would you afford to replace all of the contents?
According to MoneySuperMarket data, the average annual price for overall home insurance is £113 (January – March 2017), or the equivalent of £2.18 per week. The average annual premium for buildings insurance over the same period was £80. For contents insurance the average annual price was £53.
