Under-insurance could leave you without a home

Homeowners could be doing themselves out of thousands of euros by underinsuring their property; that’s according to local insurance expert who issued a stark warning that skimping to save a few euros on an insurance policy could have devastating consequences should a claim arise.

Athenry-based Linda Lyons, Claims Manager with CMG – the country’s largest independent loss assessor – said she was seeing cases of under insurance every day and the dire financial position it can leave people in.

The reality was that a €50 saving on an insurance policy could end up leaving a homeowner out of pocket by ‘a lot more than €50,000’ if their home was destroyed by a fire, she cautioned.

“I had two particularly bad cases in one week recently. One should have been getting €20,000 to cover damage to their property and they only got €8,000 – they are not able to reinstate their house fully. The other case was very similar,” said Ms Lyons, who covers the West of Ireland for CMG.

“That’s only on a small claim, but if their house had burned down, they wouldn’t have a hope in hell of reinstating it.”

Underinsurance occurred when the policy did not value the property at the full amount it would cost to reinstate or replace it should it be totally destroyed, and there was a lack of knowledge as to what needed to be included in that valuation, said Ms Lyons.

Read full coverage in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.