Three types of insurance you need as a homeowner

HOC

This is what is known as homeowner’s cover (HOC) and it is essentially insurance against damage to the actual “bricks and mortar” structure of your home, in the event of natural or man-made disasters, like someone driving through your garden wall or your geyser bursting.

The benefit of this type of insurance is that you will not end up having to pay off a bond on a home that may have been destroyed or seriously damaged.

The bank still gets paid, even though the property that was the security for your home loan is gone.

Bond insurance

Credit life or bond insurance is a policy that insures the creditor (in this case the bank) against your death or disability. The benefits of this type of insurance are that the outstanding balance on your home loan would immediately get paid off should something happen to you.

This means your family would be able to carry on living in a fully paid-off home if you died, and that you would not have to worry about your home loan repayments if you were permanently disabled.

And some bond insurance policies will even cover you for temporary disability and retrenchment by paying the bond instalments for a specific period.

Contents cover

The third type of insurance you will require is the familiar cover many of us have for the contents of our homes. In many cases policies also provide cover against liability claims should someone get injured on your property or in your car. However, you now need to make sure this is included.

Coetzee is CEO of BetterBond

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