Home insurance

Being a home owner also means taking care of your property. In case of an accident, you will be responsible for the costs and repairs - which makes insurance very important. There are 3 different kinds of insurance to look into when you own a house in the Netherlands.

Home owner’s insurance (opstalverzekering/woonhuisverzekering)

It is not mandatory by law for you to purchase home owner’s insurance, it is highly recommended to do so. Its policy will cover the major causes of damage to property, such as theft, storm, flooding by rain water damage, and fire. However, the insurance will not cover any damage that happens due to lack of proper upkeep of the unit, or when you have not done essential repairs.

If you buy an apartment, it is common for the Association of Owners to take out the house insurance for all units in a building. Each apartment owner will pay their portion to ensure coverage is available whenever anything happens.

Contents insurance (inboedelverzekering)

When you want to protect the assets in your house, you will have to take out a contents insurance. This will cover the cost when a fire starts inside of your house or when there has been a robbery. The insurance will cover the damage caused by the fire, but also any further damage caused by smoke, soot or water used to try to put out the fire - but not for minor accidents such as the spark from a cigarette damaging the carpet. As for theft, the insurance will cover most of your (digital) devices, computers, furniture, glass breakage and general contents. In order to show your insurance that you protect your assets, they may ask to do additional inspection on locks and security systems.

High value items insurance (kostbaarhedenverzekering)

When you are a collector of art, or have any other valuable items in your house, you will want to insure them. A regular contents insurance will not cover expensive pieces such as paintings, antiques or jewellery. You will probably need to supply your insurer with a list of the items you want to protect, so they can calculate how much your coverage would be.