Your journey as a first-time buyer means making several important decisions. Hunting for your first home and the mortgage process is complicated, and it’s easy to overlook the importance of insurance.

But it is important to protect yourself and your home financially with insurance, and it’s best to get it right first time rather than buying insurance as an afterthought and regretting it later.

MortgageOne has a long-established record as a financial services provider, helping first-time buyers to secure their home loan and to purchase home insurance to protect their investment.

Table of content

Types of insurance

So, what essential types of insurance do you need when buying your first home?

If you are buying your first home with a mortgage, you will be required to have two kinds of protection as a condition of getting the loan.

Mortgage protection insurance

Mortgage protection insurance will clear the balance of your mortgage if you die during the term.

Mortgage lenders are, almost always, legally required to ensure that this type of cover is in place before you can draw down your mortgage.

The ‘sum assured’ in the policy will be the same as your mortgage balance, and this amount will reduce over time as you pay off your mortgage. For this reason, the term of your mortgage protection policy will usually be the same as your mortgage term.

In this way, you won’t pass on an outstanding mortgage balance to your family should you pass away, and there is a guarantee in place that your mortgage will be cleared.

If you already have life insurance in place that is sufficient to clear your mortgage balance, then this may satisfy your lender’s requirement in place of a mortgage protection policy.

If you have a joint mortgage with your spouse or partner, then you would be required to have a joint mortgage protection policy. This type of policy will pay out if one of you dies during the term.

With some policies, you can add serious illness cover to your mortgage protection insurance policy.

Serious illness cover, or specified illness cover, purchased with mortgage protection usually pays off the mortgage if you, or your partner if it’s a joint policy, is diagnosed with one of the insurer’s list of serious illnesses.

Serious illness cover will cover a range of illnesses, but usually provides cover for cancer, heart attack, and stroke.

Home insurance

Your mortgage provider will require you to have buildings insurance before you draw down the home loan.

This will ensure that the property is protected if it is damaged by a storm, fire, or flood, or if it is broken into.

Homeowner’s or owner-occupier’s insurance usually includes two types of cover:

  • Buildings insurance
  • Contents insurance

These types of cover, purchased together in one home insurance policy, will usually include:

  • Protection to repair or rebuild damage to the building or structure of your home, such as walls, windows, and the roof.
  • Protection for damage to the contents of your home, such as furniture, appliances, and electronics.
  • Emergency home assistance following an event such as a fire, storm, or break-in.
  • Homeowner’s liability if a visitor to your home is injured or their property is damaged.
  • Water and oil leaks.
  • Fire brigade charges.

You can also add additional accidental damage cover to most home insurance policies. You may also require specific cover for high-value items such as jewellery or sports equipment, such as bicycles, with your contents insurance.

These additional forms of insurance coverage will add to the cost of your homeowner’s insurance policy.

Your building’s cover is calculated based on the rebuild cost of your property. This is different from the market value and is based on the cost of fully rebuilding your home following an insured event. The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) has an online calculator to estimate this cost, or a surveyor can carry out a survey for an accurate rebuild cost.

Trust MortgageOne

MortgageOne can help you get stress-free mortgage protection and home insurance cover for total peace of mind.

Our expert insurance advisors will assess your requirements and find you great value income protection and home insurance, online or with a quick phone call.

Our smart tech and experienced team also help you get mortgage-ready and find you a mortgage with great rates, all in one stop.  Fill in our online assessment, and we can get started.