Maw Comms news

20 Jun, 17 Top 10 home improvements 2017: Homeowners splash out on new bathrooms

 Gocompare.com warns homeowners that major works could invalidate their home insurance

• 43% of homeowners have carried out major work on their properties in the last 5 years;
• Updating bathrooms and kitchens, investing in energy efficient measures including new central heating systems, top the list of improvements;
• 41% of homeowners who have carried out major work on their property haven’t informed their insurer of the changes they have made.

A new bathroom is the UK’s most popular home renovation, according to a new study from GoCompare Home Insurance*.

The research that nearly two in five (39%) homeowners who carried out a major home improvement in the last five years splashed out on a new bathroom. The other most popular renovations were new kitchens (38%) and a new boiler or central heating system (34%).

However, the study also revealed that 41% of those carrying out renovations did so without telling their home insurer, potentially invalidating their policy.

Matt Sanders, home insurance spokesperson for GoCompare explained, “While you don’t need to inform your insurer about routine decorating or maintenance, you should inform your provider if you’re planning on carrying out any major building or renovation work, otherwise you could risk invalidating your policy.

“When planning a major renovation project, one of the first things you should do is to review your buildings and contents insurance to make sure that you have adequate cover both during and after the work has been completed.

Matt Sanders added, “Another important thing to note is that most home insurance policies don’t cover tradesmen or their work, so you should always check that they have their own insurance in place.  It’s also sensible to check that any tradesmen you employ are qualified to carry out the work and registered with a recognised governing body.

“Remember, after completion of the work, you may need to increase your sum insured to reflect any increase in the rebuilding costs of your property and any increase in the value of your possessions.”

For more information on home improvement and home insurance visit: http://www.gocompare.com/home-insurance/home-improvements

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For further information please contact:

Anders Nilsson or Martyn John at GoCompare on 01633 654 054 / 01633 654 725

Gordon, Jason or Liz at MAW Communications on 01603 505 845

Keep up-to-date with the GoCompare press team on Twitter; @GoComparecomms

Notes to editors:

*On 27 March 2017, Bilendi conducted an online survey among 2001 randomly selected British adults who are Maximiles UK panelists (1,275 were homeowners).  The margin of error-which measures sampling variability-is +/- 2.2%. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and regional data to ensure samples representative of the entire adult population of United Kingdom. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

GoCompare is a comparison website that enables people to compare the costs and features of a wide variety of insurance policies, financial products and energy tariffs. GoCompare does not charge people to use its services, and it does not accept advertising or sponsored listings, so all product comparisons are unbiased. Gocompare.com makes its money through fees paid by the providers of products that appear on its various comparison services when a customer buys through the site. GoCompare does not sell its customers’ data.

When it launched in 2006, it was the first comparison site to focus on displaying policy details rather than just listing prices, with the aim of helping people to make better-informed decisions when buying their insurance. GoCompare has remained dedicated to helping people choose the most appropriate products rather than just the cheapest, and has teamed up with Defaqto, the independent financial researcher, to integrate additional policy information into a number of its insurance comparison services. This allows people to compare up to an extra 30 features of cover.

GoCompare is the only comparison website to be invited to join the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).