Extra and Essentials FAQs

Our Buildings Insurance covers loss or damage to the structure of your home, for example, to walls, permanent fixtures and fittings, gates and fences, drives and patios. Domestic outbuildings such as sheds, garages and greenhouses are also covered (Garages and outbuildings used for business purposes other than clerical, will not be covered). If you own your own home then you should have buildings insurance. If you are renting your home or have a lease, normally the landlord or the freeholder would be responsible for insuring the property.

Our Contents Insurance covers your personal belongings against loss or damage and includes everything you’d take with you if you moved home – including for example, furniture, kitchen appliances, curtains, bedding, clothing, television, computer equipment and jewellery.

The excess is the amount you must pay towards each and every claim.

The excesses are shown on your policy schedule and/or by endorsement.

Where more than one section of cover operates in respect of an incident of loss or damage only one excess will apply. If there are differing levels of excess, the highest excess will apply.

We want you to understand how much you'll have to pay in the event of a claim, so if you need any help or guidance, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

We consider High Risk items to be articles of:

• Jewellery, pearls, precious stones, gold, silver and other precious metals.
• Works of art.
• Stamp and coin collections.
• Clocks and watches.

For details of the overall High Risk item limits that apply to your cover, please refer to your policy schedule. Further information about High Risk items and cover limits can also be found in the Policy Booklets.

As with most home insurance, our policies don’t cover loss or damage to your home or contents due to maintenance, wear and tear, or damage that happens gradually over time.

Insurance companies and the Government have been working together to develop a different way of dealing with flood insurance. They decided on a not-for-profit flood reinsurance scheme, known as Flood Re, to help support households at highest risk of flooding.

Find out more

Trace and access relates to cover for the costs involved in tracing the source of an escape of water or leakage of oil. This includes replacement or repair of any walls, floors or ceilings (including fixtures and fittings attached to them) inside the home where this occurs in the course of these investigations.

This cover's included in our Extra policy up to £5,000 with Buildings cover, but isn’t available with our Essentials policy.

If optional Family Legal Protection is included within your policy, it will cover the cost of pursuing certain legal proceedings such as:

• Death of or personal injury to you or your immediate family.
• Buying or hiring goods or services for your own personal use.
• Any infringement of your legal rights from owning or occupying your home.
• A breach of your employment contract.

It will also cover the cost of defending legal proceedings such as:

• A motoring prosecution brought against you.
• The sale of privately owned goods by you.
• We’ll also pay your costs in connection with a formal enquiry by HM Revenue & Customs into your private tax affairs.

Family Legal Protection is provided by DAS.

For details of what's not covered, including the limitations and exclusions that apply, please refer to the policy booklets. Your policy schedule will show if you've added Family Legal Protection to your policy.

If you require home emergency cover, then it's included as standard with our buildings cover under Home Insurance Extra. We'll cover you for up to £500 (inc VAT) against certain call out charges, labour and parts or materials for immediate repairs to stabilise and remove the emergency.

We'll send a repairer to assess the situation and carry out emergency work arising from:

• Burst pipes or sudden leakage.
• Break in or vandalism, compromising the security of your home.
• Storm damage causing water to enter your home or likely to cause further loss or damage to your home or its contents.
• Impact damage by falling trees, or by a vehicle or a plane or aerial debris.
• Failure of your domestic water mains supply leaving you with no running water.
• Failure of your gas supply pipe leaving you unable to use your gas appliances.
• Failure of your domestic electricity system leaving your home without electricity.
• Blocked drains.
• Failure of your domestic hot water system.
• Total failure of your central heating system between the months of September and April inclusive.
• A smashed toilet bowl or cistern, or breakage of the cistern internal mechanism that prevents flushing.
• Emergency repairs if subsidence or heave or landslip causes sudden damage allowing water to enter or compromise the security of your home by breaking external windows, doors or their frames.

Home Emergency is provided through AXA Assistance (UK) Limited.

Limitations and exclusions apply, for example we don’t cover boilers and warm air units over 8 years old. For details of the cover and what's not included, please refer to the Policy Booklet.

Home Emergency Cover is not suitable for tenants.

If you'd like to add or remove an additional cover option for example Accidental Damage or Pedal Cycle cover, you can do this by contacting us.

If you’ve moved house you’ll need to contact our Customer Services department to let us know. We’ll need to confirm the following details, so please have this information ready when you call:

• Full property address, including post code
• Exchange/completion date
• Type of property and year the property was built
• Whether the property has suffered flood or subsidence (if applicable)

If you need cover for two addresses, we can look at covering both properties and also cover your contents whilst moving, providing we currently insure the address you're moving from.

We no longer list mortgage lenders as an interested party or as a joint policyholder on our Home Insurance policies.

Your policy documentation is proof of your Buildings Insurance cover.

We'll advise if you need to send in a valuation or proof of ownership and how you should send these to us.

We normally require these if your valuable item is over £10,000 or if you make a claim. Further information about High Risk items and cover limits can also be found in the Policy Booklets.

When we ask you to provide a valuation, we'd normally expect to see:

• The name and address of the owner
• The name and address of the valuer
• A full description of the article
• The value of the item in Sterling
• The date of the valuation
• If an Institute Registered Valuer has completed it then it should also contain the assessor’s IRV registration number

Please could you send the original Power of Attorney document with your policy number and contact details should we need to contact you. We'll send these back to you by recorded delivery.

Our postal address is:

Legal & General
PO Box 6982
Birmingham
B5 4BR

For an additional cost we can cover pedal cycles both in and away from the home.

This additional section will cover pedal cycles for loss or damage up to £500 per pedal cycle. We may be able to insure cycles worth more than £500 if the make, model and frame number are provided. Please have this information to hand when you call us.

Please call us so we can update our records and make sure you’re adequately covered. We’ll need to know whether the building work has been signed off by your local authority and the new rebuilding cost of your property. This is to make sure that the sum insured is sufficient to cover you in the event of a claim.

We know that sometimes things can go wrong. Our number one priority is to provide you with the highest level of customer service. If there’s a problem please let us know and we’ll try to provide a solution as quickly as possible.

By phone:
0370 900 3116
Lines are open 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. We may record and monitor calls.

By Post

3rd Floor, The Podium
Centre City House
5 Hill Street
Birmingham
B5 4US

Please quote your policy number or claim number. The address and telephone number of the main office where the manager is located are shown on your policy schedule or last renewal notice.