26 April 2021

Tips To Avoid Home Emergencies


You never know when a home emergency such as a broken-down boiler or burst pipes might happen, leaving you with the stress of sourcing engineer and with potentially costly repair leaving you out of pocket.

Even if you have Home Emergency Cover in place, there are still steps you can take yourself to prevent a home emergency striking in the first place. We’ve put together a list of things you can do to avoid this happening and to keep your property safe.

Service your boiler

If you’ve ever had a broken boiler, especially during the colder months, you’ll know just how stressful and potentially costly it can be. Having your boiler serviced annually can help spot small issues before they become bigger – and more expensive – problems.

You can add a boiler service to any of our Home Emergency insurance plans from just £8.47 a month. Find out what a boiler service involves.

Protect your pipes

Burst water pipes are especially common in cold weather due to water freezing and expanding inside your pipes. As the water expands, it can substantial pressure on the pipe, meaning weaker pipes may burst.

If you can, check that none of your pipes are missing insulation before the weather gets colder. Condensate pipes are especially prone to freezing as they often run outside your property. Find out how to thaw a frozen condensate pipe with our handy guide and make sure you know where your stopcock is in the event of a bust pipe, so you can stop the flow of water quickly.

Complete Home Emergency Cover can help protect your plumbing and, if you upgrade to our Premium package, also take care of non-emergency problems like dripping taps too.

Maintain your drains

The best way to look after your drains is to be conscious about the things you’re putting down your bath, shower and sink plug holes or flushing down the toilet. Even things like food down your kitchen sink or hair down your bath/shower plug hole can build up over time and cause blockages. You can read our blog post ‘Top Tips For Looking After Your Drains and Pipes' for information on looking after your plumbing system.

Blocked drains are inconvenient and unpleasant to deal with and could result in you having to call out a plumber to deal with the problem.

Our Complete Home Emergency package ensures that in the event of the failure of your plumbing system, that you have help to cover the cost of repairs.

Check outside

You may forget to check the outside of your property, but this is especially important to check before the cold weather sets in.

Make sure you don’t have any missing, broken, or loose roof tiles that could cause internal water damage when the weather turns bad.

It’s also important to check that you don’t have any holes or cracks that could let in water or even pests in search of a warm place to shelter.

Check too that your external locks, doors and windows remain secure and inaccessible to intruders.

By purchasing Complete Home Emergency Insurance, you’ll be covered in the event of any of the above home emergencies (from a list of specified pests if you discover an infestation in your home/building attached to your home).

Take care of your electrics

Overloading your electrical circuits or using faulty electrical devices can be very dangerous and result in a power cut, or in the worst-case scenario, an electrical fire. You should never attempt repairs on faulty electrics yourself, meaning you’ll need to get them checked out by a qualified electrician as soon as possible.

A Complete Home Emergency Cover package can protect you against the failure of at least one complete circuit (that can’t be resolved by resetting your fuse box), meaning you’re not left having to source your own electrician in the event of an emergency/

Home Emergency Assist is an appointed representative of Insure Group Limited, who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) giving you additional peace of mind.

To find out more about our Complete Home Emergency plans, boiler and central heating insurance or other types of home care cover plans, such as plumbing and drainage insurance and home appliances cover, contact our friendly team on 0330 09 48 301. You can also get a quote online.