Home insurance statistics: can 6 million Brits afford to go uninsured?

We look at the latest statistics on home insurance, including average cost, the number of policies and the number of claims.

Home insurance statistics: Highlights

The average quoted price of home insurance is £227 as of October 2023.
The price of home insurance rose by 36.1% in the year to October 2023.
In 2024, around 34.67 million property insurance policies will be in issue.
Home insurance payouts were worth £782 million in Q2 2023, the equivalent of £8.6 million a day.
For every £1 property insurers received in premiums in 2022, they paid out £1.22 in claims.
The average value of a home insurance claim paid was £4,300 in Q2 2023.
Over a quarter (27%) of British homeowners don’t know how to make a claim on their home insurance policy.

What is the average cost of home insurance in the UK?

The average quoted price of home insurance stands at £227, rising by 36.1% from £163 in the year to October – the highest annual increase on record.

How much has home insurance increased this year?

Quoted home insurance premiums have risen by 42.2% since February 2014, but around 33.8% of the total increase has happened in 2023.

In the year to October 2023, water-related damage claims have seen quoted prices rise by 42.8%, while those with buildings claims have seen increases of 40.7 and costs for damage-related claims have increased by 39.5%.

What are the average home insurance costs by region?

Londoners have the highest cost for home insurance, with an average premium costing £342 in October 2023. They are followed by those in the South East, with an average cost of £246, and residents in the East of England, with an average cost of £228.

Meanwhile, those in the North East have the cheapest home insurance, with an average cost of £197. North West residents also pay less than the national average for home insurance, with an average price of £204, as do those in the East Midlands, with an average price of £208.

Graph
Table

Region	Price
London	£342
South East	£246
Eastern	£228
Yorkshire and The Humber	£221
South West	£212
Scotland	£210
West Midlands	£212
Wales	£210
East Midlands	£208
North West	£204
North East	£197

All regions of the UK have since a year-on-year increase of more than 30% in home insurance, but the South East has seen average prices rise the most, with an increase of 38.5%, followed by Yorkshire and The Humber with a year-on-year increase of 38.1%.

How many home insurance policies are in issue?

In 2024, it is projected that there will be 34.67 million property insurance policies in issue, down slightly from 34.76 million in 2023 and down from 35.64 million in 2018.

How much does the UK pay for home insurance?

In 2022, UK households spent over £2 billion on home insurance. This is similar to 2021 and an increase from 2020, when UK residents spent £1.48 billion on home insurance.

The total amount spent on home insurance reached a high in 2014 when UK households spent a whopping £2.85 billion, 34% higher than in 2022.

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Table

Year	Spend on home insurance (billions)
2022	£2.02
2021	£2.01
2020	£1.48
2019	£2.02
2018	£1.84
2017	£1.75
2016	£2.26
2015	£2.53
2014	£2.85
2013	£2.43

Home insurance payout rates

Home insurance payouts were worth £782 million, up 11% in the second quarter of 2022. This is the equivalent of £8.6 million paid every day to help households cope with the unexpected.

In 2022, for every £1 property insurers received in home insurance premiums, they paid out £1.22 in claims and expenses.

What is the average value of a home insurance claim?

The average value of a home insurance claim paid in the second quarter of 2023 was £4,300, up 24% from around £3,400 in the same period in 2022.

The UK home insurance market

The UK household insurance market is expected to grow by 2.9% in 2023, following a 3.3% decline in 2022.

The gross written premium of the UK home insurance market in 2022 was £5.97 billion. This is the total amount insurers collect from customers for insurance policies.

Sources

Consumer Intelligence
ABI
Statista
Sky Protect
ONS
Global Data

Despite home insurance providing vital protection for your home and possessions, many homeowners in the UK choose not to insure their homes. Our research shows that 19 million Brits have contents insurance, some 1.1 million fewer than 5 years ago. We explored why Brits are not buying contents insurance and what they are putting at risk without it.

Quick overview

There are 22.6 million homes in the UK.
Over a quarter (6 million) of homes in the UK don’t have any form of home insurance.
The average home has contents worth in excess of £35,000.
The average home insurance cost (for both building and contents cover) is £309 per year.
That’s less than £6 per week to cover your building and its contents.
Water damage accounted for over 30% of home insurance payouts.
The Financial Conduct Authority reports that 6 million Brits are overpaying for their insurance (including home insurance).
If those Brits paying a high premium paid the average premium, they would save £1.2 billion a year.

Which regions are better at having their contents covered?

Northern Ireland is the best region for having their contents covered, with 82% of homes having cover, whilst only 55% of London homes have contents cover.

How much does home insurance cost?

Home insurance comes in 3 main forms; contents insurance, buildings insurance or both. The price you pay depends on a few factors, mainly where you live, how big your home is and what you want to be covered on your contents insurance.

A combined contents and building insurance policy cost an average of £307 a year.
Building cover costs an average of £258.
Contents insurance costs an average of £127.
That’s the lowest average price since 2015 for contents insurance.
Combined cover costs less than £6 per week on average.
Paying an average home insurance policy monthly means would incur interest payments of £34 over the year (on a £265 annual policy with 22.9% APR).

Home insurance premium costs over time

We explored the data to find out how the median cost of home insurance premiums purchased online has trended over time from 2013 to 2019. Q3 figures from 2019 show that home insurance premiums are at their median highest rate since Q4 in 2013. In general, the trend of home insurance costs was on the decline from 2013 until Q4 2018, when prices began to rise again.

Search table

Time period	Median price paid for Home Insurance policies online
Q1 '13	£154
Q2 '13	£153
Q3 '13	£150
Q4 '13	£146
Q1 '14	£141
Q2 '14	£138
Q3 '14	£136
Q4 '14	£134
Q1 '15	£132
Q2 '15	£128
Q3 '15	£126
Q4 '15	£125
Q1 '16	£117
Q2 '16	£117
Q3 '16	£116
Q4 '16	£115
Q1 '17	£113
Q2 '17	£115
Q3 '17	£124
Q4 '17	£125
Q1 '18	£123
Q2 '18	£125
Q3 '18	£128
Q4 '18	£141
Q1 '19	£140
Q2 '19	£141
Q3 '19	£145

Common home insurance claims

Whether your home has been broken into or adverse weather conditions have caused flooding – there may be a time when you need to claim on your insurance. The level of cover you pay for will determine what you can claim for, but what are the most common claims for?

What do people claim for on home insurance?

Domestic claims incurred by peril (2018 Q3)	Percentage of claims
Fire & explosion	17%
Theft	12%
Weather	6%
Escape of water	30%
Domestic subsidence	12%
Accidental damage	11%
Other	12%

Contents insurance

Contents insurance is a way of protecting your personal belongings and items within your home. When taking out your policy, it’s important to accurately estimate the value of your items in case you ever need to make a claim. The average contents policy costs just £127 a year, or £2.40 a week.

The value of possessions owned by all UK households now totals nearly £1 trillion.
An average amount of stuff owned, at £35,000, is worth more than the average annual UK salary of £27,000.
Over a quarter of households – 7.5 million – have no contents insurance.
This means over £266 billion unprotected possessions are potentially at risk.
Of those who do not have contents insurance, 16% reported not being able to afford it, while 13% felt they did not want or need it.

How many homes have contents insurance?

The latest report shows that over 19 million homes in the UK had contents insurance in 2018. This figure is, however, the lowest in the last 5 years, 1.1 million fewer than in 2013. Explore the graphic below to see how the number of households with contents insurance has trended over time.