The best home emergency cover is more than just a home insurance add-on. It is a significant addition to your policy that offers quick and comprehensive relief for often quite traumatic and expensive events. Drainage cover and annual boiler cover are just some of the perks some of the best home emergency policies provide.
But how do you decide which is best? Afterall, home emergency cover is an add-on that can vary between policies and isn’t quite so easy to compare on a comparison site.
At Emerald Life, we can provide home emergency cover as a great add-on with our home insurance. That means you can save time hunting and jump straight to effective cover. You can get a quote for our home cover from our home insurance page.
We believe in home emergency cover as a way to give more to our customers. Incidents like leaks, blocked drains and smashed windows can be devastating and getting help quickly can reduce the impact of such events significantly.
Additionally, we’ve conducted some research to find some of the best home emergency cover on the market. There are many providers available and you should also conduct your own research to establish which product is right for you.
Table of Contents
Best Home Emergency Cover
Emerald Life
People value efficiency when dealing with insurance. For many, removing hassles is the best way to make the necessity of buying insurance manageable, and gives them the best home emergency cover.
At Emerald Life, the focus is on providing easy access to insurance products for anyone. Extending the need for efficient coverage, the company offers home emergency cover on top of its standard home insurance. This is an important addition because it means Emerald Life customers avoid needing to shop for two types of coverage.
What’s available (but remember to read the terms and conditions with this and any other policy):
- £500 towards contractor costs for emergency repairs.
- Plumbing emergency cover and repair
- Drainage
- Security cover and repair, including windows and locks
- Toilet cover and repair
- Lost keys cover
- Pest control
- Domestic power supply cover
- Overnight accommodation
- 24 hours a day, 365 days a year availability
HomeServe
HomeServe is a global specialist that provides protection for the essential systems in your home. Policies available from the company cover boiler, heating, and electrical. At one time, the company did not offer protection for appliances, but a new kitchen appliance solution has plugged the gap. With HomeServe, you can choose the level of home emergency cover you want through a modular approach to policies. Customers can opt to select separate areas or bundles packaged together. If you want boiler coverage but not electrical, it’s easy to do customize your level of protection through Home Serve.
What’s Available
- Home emergency repairs
- Plumbing cover
- Boiler and heating protection
- Boiler service
- Landlord cover
- Kitchen appliance insurance
- Electrics
24/7 Home Rescue
24/7 Home Rescue takes a different approach to HomeServe. Instead of having home emergency cover that you can tailor to your individual needs, the company offers levels of care to choose from. This means you do not name individual appliances or insure them separately. By choosing an emergency policy with 24/7 Home Rescue, you will essentially be covering a certain type of appliance.
What’s Available
- Standard Policy: Covers fridge/freezer, washing machine, tumble dryer plus a dishwasher and gas hob.
- Premium Policy: Covers seven different appliances, including the appliances in the Basic Plan and a separate fridge, freezer, and electric oven.
- Deluxe Policy: This is more affordable than the Premium Package and focuses only on Range Master cookers and American fridge freezers.
- Boiler Care: Available in three packages covering basic boiler breakdown coverage, heating coverage, and full home system protection.
Smart-Cover Insurance Services
Smart-Cover is a noteworthy home emergency cover insurer because of the sheer number of products the company offers. Moreover, customers can create their own policy plans by choosing specifically which household items and systems they want to insure. From full plans that insure complete home systems to bespoke cover that handled individual items, including gadgets, Smart-Cover is a among the best home emergency cover providers.
What’s Available
- Appliance insurance: Covers fridge/freezers, washing machines, tumble dryers, cookers, dishwashers, ovens, and more.
- Phone and Gadget insurance: Covers devices including products from Apple, Samsung, cameras, games consoles, PCs and more.
- Electronics insurance: Covers TVs, audio, and home entertainment systems.
- Home Emergency Basic plan (with optional boiler service): Covers plumbing, electrical, external locks, doors and windows, blocked pipes, lost keys, and pest control.
- Home Emergency Essential plan (with optional boiler service): All items in the Basic plan with heating cover, roofing repair, boiler breakdown protection, and alternative accommodation.
PlusHeat
PlusHeat is a leading supplier of home emergency cover. The company provides all-in-one packages that offer a full level of protection across home systems. However, there are different price tiers, each offering more coverage than the last. Customers can choose the best home emergency cover to meet their needs. For example, the most affordable package will handle boiler breakdowns, whereas more expensive plans will protect a wider range of appliances.
What’s Available
- Standard: Limits protection to repairs for boilers, controls, and central heating.
- Premium: Adds to the Standard cover with protection for boiler replacement, as well as plumbing, electric, and drainage repairs.
- Platinum: Adds to the Standard and Premium packages with repairs for home security, roofing, as well as providing handyman access and pest control.
- Custom: A package that lets customers choose boiler and control repair alongside any four of central heating, plumbing, electric, and drainage.
HomeRescueCO
HomeRescueCO provides some of the most complete home emergency insurance packages in the UK. Something worth noting is the company provides information on price plans per year and per month. Those plans are combo coverage that protect against several risks depending on the level of protection you purchase. Choosing home emergency cover with HomeResuce is easy as the company makes its plans as efficient as possible, covering the standard home systems boiler, heater systems, and electrical infrastructure.
What’s Available
- Electric and plumbing cover
- Boiler and heating cover
- Boiler and heating cover with annual service
- Electric, plumbing, boiler and heating cover
- Electric, plumbing, boiler and heating cover with annual service
HomeTree
HomeTree delivers home emergencycover to landlords and homeowners. In fact, the company’s homeowner’s coverage is particularly robust, providing three levels of protection, each with optional gas fire insurance. Perhaps the best emergency cover at HomeTree is the Home plan, which offers cover to all important home systems to offer comprehensice protection for your property.
What’s Available
- Your Boiler plan: Gas boiler, flue and controls repair along with an annual boiler service.
- Your Heating plan: The benefits of the Your Boiler plan, with wider heater system protection.
- Your Home plan: Comprehensive coverage that combines the Your Boiler and Your Heating plans with plumbing, drains, and home electrics insurance.
YourRepair
YourRepair offers more home emergency cover plans than many of its competitors and provides more protection in its base level plans. Moreover, many of those plans are amongst the best available, especially if having choice is important. There are five plans on offer, each available for between one and three years. All price tiers come with YourRepair’s Instant Protection solution, which removes the exclusion period for new customers. While the company offers more expensive and more affordable options, the Heating and Home plans is perhaps the best. It cuts a nice line throguh the middle of YourRepairs insurance with a solid level of emergency protection.
What’s Available
- Boiler Care plan: Free boiler service, boiler and controls repair, carbon monoxide test, boiler replacement.
- Boiler and Heating plan: Adds central heating system repair to the Boiler Care Plan.
- Heating and Home plan: All the benefits of the previous two plans with coverage for gas supply pipes, plumbing, and electric.
- Advanced Home plan: Building on the Heating and Home plan by including taps and toilets, drains, and water pipes repair.
- Complete Home plan: All the other plans combined, with additional protection for security and locks, roofing, as well as pest control.
EDF Energy
EDF does not offer the wide range of coverage of more specialist home emergency insurers. However, the company provides expert-level repair protection in the coverage it does supply. Speaking of that coverage, customers heading to EDF Energy can get boiler and heating insurance protection. Of course, if you are already a customer of EDF for your gas or electricity needs, tapping into the company’s home emergency cover is simple.
What’s Available
- EDF Energy Boiler Protect: parts and labour with a parts guarantee for 12 months, a first annual service, up to £500 towards a replacement boiler, and domestic gas boiler and controls repair.
- Heating insurance: Adds central heating repairs to the Boiler Protect plan.
British Gas
British Gas is another energy provider that has its own home emergency cover available for existing clients and new customers. The company supplies a solid range of insurance options covering the classic home system protection plans. Existing customers of British Gas will be able to get the company’s home emergency packages more seamlessly and included.
What’s Available
- HomeCare boiler and heating cover and repair
- Plumbing and drains cover and repair
- Home electrical cover and repair
What To Look For
Best home emergency cover is something many people avoid buying, believing their home systems are bulletproof. That is not the case and should the worse happen to your plumbing, heating, boiler, and other systems, you could be on the hook for thousands of pounds. Luckily, avoiding those costly surprises is affordable thanks to home emergency cover, and preferably best home emergency cover!
It is worth noting home emergency protection is different to home insurance, although they can be bundled together. A standard home insurance policy will only cover damage to your property and belongings. Home emergency cover will protect the underpinning systems that make your home livable.
What is covered in the best home emergency cover?
There is a lot of variance in home emergency policies, depending on how much you are willing to pay for protection. Needless to say, the more you pay, the more cover you get. That said, there are some standard items that will appear on most home emergency cover:
- Boiler breakdown cover and repair
- Central heating cover and repair
- Hot water loss cover
- Water pipe cover
- Plumbing cover and repair
- Electrical cover and repair
- Roof damage cover and repair
- Blocked drains
- Security
- Pest control
Again, home emergency insurance policies will protect you for some or all those items depending on your level of coverage, and likely you want the best home emergency cover.
What home emergency insurance does not cover
When shopping for home emergency cover, it is good practice to look at what exclusions are on each policy. Exclusions are the items that the insurance will not cover. For example, you’ll probably find there is a limit on how much the insurer will pay towards repair and contractors. Maybe there will be a limit on the number of claims or callouts you can make each year.
Other common exclusions include:
- No claims during the first 14 days (or other timeframe) of taking out the policy
- Home emergency problems that happen in a property that is unoccupied for 30 days or more
- Problems caused by poor maintenance or general wear and tear from old age
- Boilers that have not been serviced during the last year.
When to Make a Claim
Home emergency insurance is a wise choice, but what exactly is a home emergency? Unfortunately, this is a definition that not even insurers can agree on. You will find different providers have separate definitions for what is an emergency. Still, in general there are some standard situations that most insurers will classify as an emergency:
- If something happens to make your home uninhabitable
- Permanent damage to a home system
- A problem that makes the property unsafe
- Risks to general health and wellbeing
Is home emergency cover part of home insurance?
It can be. Some insurance companies bundle home insurance cover into their standard home insurance policies. Emerald Life is an example, providing full home emergency policy within its home insurance product. Such a perk makes the home insurance policy better value and allows customers to avoid shopping for separate coverage.
When taking out home insurance, it is worth checking with your insurer whether what you think is the best home emergency cover is included. Even if it is, you may still want to look around for comprehensive protection depending on your needs.
What else should you know?
Home emergency insurance is for customers who own their home. People who rent will hopefully have such emergencies covered by their landlord.
Whether your home insurance policy includes home emergency insurance or you have to buy it seperately, it is a valuable addition to your home protection. If the worst happens and you need to make a claim, you will be happy you decided to buy the best home emergency cover.
Article: Best Home Emergency Cover
