Are you looking to insuring a home or house in Spain?
Great news – we help expats get the lowest and cheapest quotes whether you are insuring your permanent home or a home you rent out as a holiday home.
We go over all the frequently asked questions as well as providing an fast and convenient online form which enables us to compare the market for home contents or buildings insurance and give you a quote for the cheapest policy we can find that matches your requirements.
Online Quotes for Spanish Home Insurance
If you would like a quote for home insurance in Spain – home contents or buildings please fill in the ‘no-obligation best deal quote’ form below and let our insurance broker partners do the hard work by comparing the market to find you the best insurance deals for Spain.
Our policies are in English with support staff who speak English fluently – invaluable should you have an incident which requires a claim to be made.
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The legal/privacy bit we have to put in – Note that you are using this form to submit your details to us so we can then compare the market and give you options for home insurance. Our privacy notice at the footer of our website lets you know how we use your data and how to request removal. You don’t need to do anything other than fill in your details and let our brokers do the rest.
We can also help compare other types of insurance, perhaps you need a quote for car insurance? We also have great guides on moving to Spain and plenty of advice on the pros and cons of living in Spain.
Home or house insurance in Spain (known in Spanish as seguros de hogar) is not compulsory (except for buildings insurance when you have taken out a mortgage) but as your property in Spain is probably your main financial asset; you are well-advised to protect it.
5 Tips to Get Cheaper Spanish Home Insurance
Why pay any more than you really need to?
A bit of time spent researching and a few phone calls and e-mails to brokers or directly to insurance companies can save you literally hundreds of Euros in just one year.
It really is impossible to give you one insurance company name because depending on the location of your home and the exact specifications and details of what you want to insure, you will get different quotations from different Spanish companies and brokers. Having said that below we list six ways to help you lower your premiums for home insurance in Spain.
Tip 1 – Use an Insurance Broker
save you time and money by comparing quotations from many different Spanish home insurance companies. Brokers can go directly to their sources at the leading Spanish home insurance companies and get special rates that you are not privy to.
Tip 2 – Do it Yourself
Shop around for the cheapest home insurance by using Internet price comparison websites where you put in your property details and circumstances and within seconds you get the lowest home insurance quote.
Tip 3 – Don’t Claim for Small Amounts!
Consider whether you should not claim, because you run the risk of increasing your premiums the following years because you have lost your no claims discount.
Tip 4 – Get in Done in One Go
Don’t pay your Spanish home insurance in instalments, instead pay it in one go. It is false economy to pay monthly as you invariably end up paying more as interest is charged.
Tip 5 – Increase Your Excess
By taking an increased risk and raising your excess on your Spanish home insurance policy, you will lower your annual premiums.
Most expatriates searching for quotes for house and home insurance in Spain will mainly be in the popular expat areas on the Costa del Sol (especially Marbella, Puerto Banus, Benalmadena, Fuengirola, Torremolinos, Nerja, Malaga), the Costa Blanca (especially Alicante, Benidorm, Calpe, Moraira, Torrevieja), the Costa Brava, Madrid, Barcelona or the islands of Spain such as Tenerife, Lanzarote, Majorca/Mallorca, the Canary Islands and Menorca.
It is an unfortunate fact that most expatriates who have bought property in Spain usually have very limited knowledge of the Spanish language. Therefore when searching for property insurance in Spain they are inclined to search out insurance companies or brokers who provide services in English, as well as policies, worded in English.
Sources of home insurance in Spain in English include insurance brokers such as Knight Insurance, INOV, Abbeygate, The Insurance Centre and IBEX.
Major home and house insurance companies in Spain which offer services in English include AXA Spain, Allianz, Catalana Occidente, Generali, Zurich, Mutua Madrilena, Caser Seguros, Aviva, Mapfre insurance, Liberty Seguros, and Línea Directa in English.
Below we cover the various different types of home and house insurance in Spain, these include:
Home Contents Insurance
What would happen if you were burgled and items potentially worth thousands of pounds or thousands of euros was stolen?
Equally all sorts of damage can occur inside your home due to natural disasters such as a freezer not working resulting in a minor flood or maybe a bath overflows.
Let’s also produce a list of the other benefits of taking out a home contents insurance for your property in Spain.
One major benefit is typically that contents insurance covers your liability to third parties on your property if they have an accident or injury.
This could include a guest if you are renting a property or a workman or delivery person, literally anybody who has an accident on your property could potentially sue you for medical costs and damages.
Accidental damage to your personal possessions is also usually covered with home contents insurance. Items commonly damaged inside the home would be TV, stereo equipment, DVD players and computers.
Should appliances break down, especially freezes and fridges, these would be covered including the replacement of food inside the freezer.
Realistically the major reason for taking out a home contents insurance policy in Spain is to protect yourself against a break-in from burglars or thieves.
Unfortunately this type of crime is high in Spain especially given the fact that your property is likely to be in a relatively wealthy area of Spain, most probably in a popular tourist area which of course criminals are aware that there are rich pickings to be had with many people not thinking enough about the security of their home.
As well as cover for your personal possessions, the policy will also cover you for a limited amount of cash in the house.
Many properties in Spain are let out or rented to holidaymakers, this only increases the risk of your home being targeted and burgled. Indeed items may also be stolen or go missing from your home from the very people who have rented your property.
For this reason we would recommend you consider going to a specialist holiday home insurance company who therefore will not be able to claim that your property was rented out or left unoccupied too long, in other words your home contents policy will be specifically for your property being let out or used as a second home or holiday home in Spain.
With the home contents policy you may pay an extra premium for personal possessions cover this is also called all-risks cover which basically covers items that you take outside of the house, typically these would include cameras and mobile phones.
Check whether a quote for home contents insurance covers legal expenses as this is usually an optional extra. It can certainly be worth adding to your policy because it will cover you if you need to go to court or if somebody claims against you.
In Spain you will often hear the word ‘denuncia’ in the way someone denounces you and you have to defend yourself in court.
Please note you will not be covered if you have been involved in any criminal activity, instead legal expenses are there to protect you for employment, consumer, property and personal injury disputes.
When it comes to claiming on your policy you need to be very careful that there are no exclusions which the insurance company can use to get out of paying out on the claim.
Most commonly this would be if you are renting or letting your home so make sure that if you are doing so, that this is okay and that your insurance company are aware of this.
There are many companies offering specific holiday home insurance for Spain which of course cover the contents of your house.
Another reason for exclusion could be if your home has been unoccupied for a long period of time so make sure these items are not included in the small print for exclusions.
Another reason for exclusion could be the security of your home, it may be that a minimal amount of security such as five-lever mortise locks are required.
Know exactly what your policy and premium covers you for.
Be aware if there are any excesses on the policy.
If in doubt go to an English-speaking broker or English-speaking insurance company offering home contents.
This way you will be able to have the policy explained to you so you know exactly what you’re cover includes or doesn’t include.
Another consideration when it comes to contents insurance is the term new for old.
Most policies these days will replace damaged or stolen items with new however some policies will still apply an indemnity policy in which the insurance company will come up with a depreciated valuation for items damaged or stolen.
Typically you are bound to value your items at a higher price than the insurance company are willing to give you.
Building Insurance in Spain
If you take out a bank loan or mortgage in Spain it will be compulsory for you to have adequate buildings insurance so that your lender is protected should anything happen to your property.
Clearly having building insurance should be an essential insurance for anybody whether they have a mortgage or not. Imagine the rebuilding costs of most properties – without the correct level of cover you could find yourself homeless.
Leading providers of buildings insurance in Spain include: Schofields, Asset Sure, Intasure and Abbeygate Insure.
If you are buying an apartment in Spain then you will usually find your community fees include what is known as community insurance – this covers the exterior of the building as well as common parts of the complex as well as water damage from community pipes and third-party personal liability insurance.
Buildings insurance in Spain covers the actual structure of the building and the fixtures and fittings inside.
This will usually mean the roof, walls, doors, windows, kitchen, bathroom installations and fitted wardrobes.
Items that are movable such as furniture and all your personal possessions will not be covered, basically the house and anything that doesn’t go with you if you moved house would come under the buildings insurance, anything else should be put under your Spanish home contents insurance.
Buildings cover normally protects against damage to the villa or apartment in Spain caused by theft, storms, vandalism, fire, flood and subsidence.
However this does vary from each Spanish insurance policy and company, so do check carefully whether the policy protects against flood or subsidence or if you can get cover for these for an additional premium.
Some Spanish buildings policies do also cover things that are outside the actual building yet on the plot such as swimming pools, sheds, outbuildings, walls, fencing, gates, garages and stables but this is something that you need to be clear on depending on your situation, so do check your policy carefully.
The amount of cover you can insure for is the cost of rebuilding your home from scratch – not how much the current market value of your property is.
This is known as the sum insured and it is the absolute maximum a policy will pay, even if the house is destroyed completely.
Usually you can work out the sum insured yourself by knowing the approximate market value less about 30% but if in doubt get a Spanish surveyor or a builder to give you a professional assessment of rebuilding costs to use as an insurance valuation.
Another way to estimate the rebuild cost of your property is to know the square metres you have. For example at the moment rebuild costs from builders in Spain is typically around 800 Euros to 1000 Euros per square metre. So if you have a villa which is 200 square metres, then you can estimate 200,000 Euros to rebuild it from scratch.
Subsidence Insurance
One of the common elements included in your buildings insurance will be for subsidence.
Naturally you will want to check the small points in your policy to make sure this is not excluded because it has been an issue in Spain. Some properties have even been completely demolished through landslides.
Subsidence occurs when the actual ground underneath a property moves or sinks down. This frequently happens when the foundations are not strong enough which has been the case with many Spanish builders taking shortcuts in order to save costs.
The most common sign of subsidence is when small cracks appear in the walls of the property, gradually becoming larger and larger as the property sinks further into the ground.
If you own a new build property in Spain don’t panic if this occurs because as the new property settles it is common for small hairline cracks to develop in the plaster in the walls.
Third-party Liability Cover
An often overlooked aspect of buildings insurance is third-party liability coverage which is often included although the level of cover does vary significantly from one policy to the next.
This extra insurance covers you in case someone suffers damage whether material or physical on your property. If they then make a claim against you, you will have insurance.
This is especially important because if for example a visitor to your property in Spain slips and breaks their back (maybe by the pool for example) the medical claims and costs could be absolutely huge and could wipe you out financially for the rest of your life.
Community Insurance
This is covered in our detailed page on community insurance but to give you the basics it is the insurance necessary when you have bought an apartment in Spain.
What you need to be aware of is what is included in your community fees and what isn’t.
As a general rule you should be aware that the inside of your apartment i.e. your fixtures and fittings and all your personal possessions are not insured by the community charge.
Because you are part of a community – in other words one of many owners of the apartment block then there is typically a community (sometimes also known as an association) which has a board and president which handle the administration of the apartment block.
Part of their job is to collect fees from all the residents which go towards insuring the outside of the building and maintaining common areas such as the pool and gardens. Usually you and every other owner will pay a community fee either annually or monthly to cover these expenses.
It is usual for each community to have community insurance to protect the residents against buildings cover and public liability insurance.
Spanish Holiday Home Insurance
Given the risks of insuring a holiday home in Spain – especially if you are renting it out then you really should make sure you have adequate cover as many things can go wrong.
For good reason most insurance companies see holiday homes as higher risk. Possible events would be an increased risk of burglary because the property is empty for long periods, people who rent your property in Spain will not look after it as you would, they may also suffer personal injury and sue you for damages.
It is this public liability insurance for holiday lets in Spain that you should be most concerned about. Imagine the awful possibility of a holidaymaker suffering a personal injury while renting your property in Spain and then suing you for medical costs and compensation.
This is also known as third-party liability and could quite easily happen especially if you happen to own a swimming pool at your house or home.
Firstly let’s look at why it could be so important to have adequate levels of insurance cover for your rental property.
Consider what would happen if the worst scenarios came true – clearly the odds are they won’t – but they are possible.
For instance if you have holiday home insurance you would be protected in the events of your tenants or holiday makers who injured themselves on your property (third-party liability insurance).
Many Spanish properties have swimming pools and are set on steep slopes. Perhaps their children slip by the pool or fall over a wall or down the steps/stairs.
In this day and age they are liable to immediately think about suing you or taking you to court for damages which could be substantial and impact you for the rest of your life.
Holidaymakers are also not very good at thinking about security and so many holiday homes in Spain are burgled and robbed because they are easy pickings – the holidaymakers often have cameras, jewelry, mobile phones, cash and credit cards in easy to grab quickly places.
It is true in this example that you are not liable, but it means your own possessions that you keep in your Spanish holiday home could be taken too.
Perhaps you just intend to use your holiday home for yourself and not let it out – well the same principle applies – because you are not there for long periods of time your house or home in Spain becomes an easy target to thieves.
Having invested a substantial amount of your money and capital in purchasing a house in Spain, whether it is a townhouse, apartment or villa, without doubt your investment is substantial as really the cheapest apartments for sale in Spain start from at least €60,000 these days.
It obviously makes a lot of common sense to protect it. Let us look at some of the differences between holiday home properties and a property that you have bought your personal and permanent use.
The main difference of course is that a holiday home in Spain is likely to be empty most of the year apart from the peak summer months of July and August.
This makes it extremely vulnerable to things such as leaks in the winter from burst pipes, because believe it or not it does get very cold in most areas of Spain.
Often when items in the home go wrong they can be undiscovered for a substantial time making the damage even worse.
But the main difference of course would be the vulnerability to crime. Burglars and criminals are likely to target your property if it is easy to steal your items given that your property is empty and and unwatched.
In many urbanisations in Spain it could be that all your neighbouring properties are also holiday homes and therefore empty.
This makes it very easy for criminals to take their time in ransacking your home.
Having specialist holiday home property insurance will of course give you coverage even though your house and home is unoccupied long periods of time.
Alternatively if you’d taken out the normal home contents and buildings insurance, you may find that if your insurance company finds out your property is actually a second home or holiday home, then you are actually not covered in the event of a claim. This could lose you thousands.
Are There Websites To Compare House/Home Insurance?
Spain is relatively new to the phenomenon of price comparison sites which are much more common in other countries. There is no Go Compare, Compare The Market, Money Supermarket or Confused.com. However a new online website from Asesor Seguros does compare prices between the best Spanish insurance companies.
With home insurance having such important financial consequences should your property be destroyed or badly damaged, it is important to compare prices but don’t necessarily choose the cheapest price on that basis alone.
No matter where you live in Spain, we can help you find cheap home and house insurance if you live in these towns on the Costa Blanca: Albir, Alcossebre, Alcoy, Alfaz del Pi, Algorfa/La Finca, Alicante, Almoradi, Altea, Beniarbeig, Benidoleig, Benidorm, Benijófar, Benimar, Benissa, Benitachell, Bolulla, Busot, Cabo Roig, Calpe, Campoamor, Castalla, Catral, Caudete, Ciudad Quesada, Cumbre Del Sol, Denia, Dolores, El Campello, Elche/Elx, Els Poblets, Gandia, Gata de Gorgos, Gran Alacant, Guardamar, Hondon de la Nieves, Hondón Valley, Jalón Valley, Javea, La Drova/Barx, La Empedrola, La Fustera, La Marina, La Mata, La Nucia, La Zenia, Las Ramblas, Los Altos, Los Montesinos, Mar Menor, Mazarrón, Mil Palmeras, Monovar, Monserrat, Moraira, Oliva, Orba, Orcheta, Orihuela, Pedreguer, Pego, Pilar de la Horadada, Pinar de Campoverde, Pinoso, Playa Flamenca, Polop, Punta Prima, Rafol de Almunia, Relleu, Rojales, San Miguel de Salinas, Sanet Y Negrals, Santa Pola, Santiago de la Ribera, Sax, Teulada, Tibi, Torrevieja, Totana, Vall de Laguar, Villajoyosa, Villamartin, Villena, Villotel.
No matter where you live in Spain, we can help you find cheap house or home insurance if you live in these towns on the Costa del Sol: Algarrobo, Algatocín, Alhaurín de la Torre, Alhaurín El Grande, Almáchar, Almargen, Almogía, Álora, Alozaina, Alpandeire, Antequera, Árchez, Archidona, Ardales, Arenas, Arriate, Benadalid, Benahavís, Benalauría, Benalmádena, Benamargosa, Benamocarra, Benaoján, Benarrabá, El Borge, El Burgo, (Sitio de) Calahonda, Campillos, Canillas del Aceituno, Canillas de Albaida, Cañete La Real, Carratraca, Cartajima, Cártama, Casabermeja, Casarabonela, Casares, Coín, Colmenar, Comares, Cómpeta, Cortes de la Frontera, Cuevas Bajas, Cuevas de San Marcos, Cuevas del Becerro, Cútar, Estepona, Faraján, Frigiliana, Fuengirola, Fuente de Piedra, Gaucín, Genalguacil, Guaro, Humilladero, Igualeja, Istán, Iznate, Jimera de Líbar, Jubrique, Júzcar, La Viñuela, Macharaviaya, Málaga, Manilva, Marbella, Mijas, Moclinejo, Mollina, Monda, Montejaque, Nerja, Ojén, Parauta, Periana, Pizarra, Pujerra, Rincón de la Victoria, Riogordo, Ronda, Salares, Sayalonga, Sedella, Sierra de Yeguas, San Pedro de Alcantara, Teba, Tolox, Torremolinos, Torrox, Totalán, Valle de Abdalajís, Vélez-Málaga, Villanueva de Algaidas, Villanueva de la Concepción, Villanueva de Tapia, Villanueva del Rosario, Villanueva del Trabuco and Yunquera.
We can also help with insuring your home for popular towns and cities on the Costa Brava areas such as Lloret de Mar, Tossa del Mar, Sitges and Salou.
Obviously the big cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville as well as the Canary islands of Tenerife, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria and the Balearic Islands of Ibiza, Mallorca and Menorca.
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robert ware says
I have a house in the campo and my water supply is by means of a bore hole (pozo).Over twenty years the well pump has had to be replaced five times due to electrical outages and lightning strikesI. Is there any specialist insurance cover available in Spain as mine is not interested.
Alan Dillon says
Excellent information and advice to start the research. The rest is down to me and thats fine.