Aviva Home Insurance Review: Is This the Cover You Need?
Aviva Home Insurance Review: Is This the Cover You Need?
Good for
- A simple website and quote process
- Getting a No Claims Discount
Bad for
- Those wanting cover for pairs/sets/suites
The guidance on this site is based on our own analysis and is meant to help you identify options and narrow down your choices. We do not advise or tell you which product to buy; undertake your own due diligence before entering into any agreement. Read our full disclosure here.
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Aviva Home Insurance offers policyholders unlimited cover for both contents and buildings, for homes up to 5 bedrooms in size. We like the simplicity of their home insurance—there's one level of cover, in most cases offering an unlimited cover limit for both buildings and contents.
In this review we breakdown the particulars of Aviva Home Insurance, to help you decide if Aviva home insurance is right for you. Finding the best home insurance for you will depend upon your individual needs and situation. There may be other home insurance plans with better features available. You may also want to read about our other top picks for best home insurance companies.
In This Review
Aviva Home Insurance Review: What You Need to Know
Aviva offers one tier of home contents insurance, with unlimited cover for both contents and buildings, for homes containing at most 5 bedrooms as standard.
Optional Add-Ons include: Accidental Damage (buildings and/or contents), Home Emergency, Legal Services, No Claims Discount cover (buildings and/or contents), Increased Valuables, Personal Belongings (also protects when you're abroad), Bicycle cover away from home (already covered at home with Contents cover).
Aviva Home Insurance Key Facts
- Unlimited cover limits (up to 5 bed home)
- One tier of cover (to which you can add extra coverages)
- Claims are settled by repairing, giving you an equivalent replacement or making a payment
- No Claims Discount up to 5 years maximum
- Undamaged companion pieces or parts of a set are not covered
- Basic policy costs and coverages are comparable to averages in the UK
Aviva Home Insurance Customer Complaints, Reviews and Ratings
According to Trustpilot, Aviva is rated with 4.0 stars out of 5, which is not bad for an insurance company but has dropped in the past year. There seem to be extremes in customer experience, with policyholders either loving or hating it. 73% of customers reported an 'Excellent' experience and 15% a 'Bad' experience (slightly worse stats than 6 months ago).
However, the scores primarily reflect their car insurance product, so we scoured through the reviews to learn about common complaints for home insurance in particular—which included premium increases at renewal and slow responses in Home Emergency cover situations. Here's a sample of real customer comments about Aviva home insurance:
"Just purchased home insurance. Straightforward on line process and reasonable quote. Happy to switch from my current provider to Aviva."
"Brilliant Service and easy to use when setting up my home insurance."
"Our insurance claim started with Aviva back in November 2019. First, we had to deal with hour long queues to speak with Customer Services that often ended in getting cut off and eventually we get appointed a loss adjuster who is about effective as a fart in a storm. Here we are into March 2020 and still we face daily battles to make any significant progress to resolving our claim. Loss adjuster rarely return calls, reply to emails or texts. No sense of any urgency!"
"I logged a plumbing issue with my kitchen sink... over 1.5 months waiting around at home and nobody turns up and they don't bother to call you to tell you why..."
"We paid £300 last year which we thought was steep but we'd only been in our home a year at that point and were still new to insurance. We assumed this year because we'd now had almost 3 years no claims that it would be cheaper but they increased it to £410. Every other insurance company is offering us insurance for around £150 with better cover so we've switched. It's okay for people like us who are savvy on this kind of stuff but they will be leeching money from older, vulnerable people who don't realise how easy it is to switch companies."
"House flooded Friday we are coming up to Wednesday no calls back..."
"My car insurance premium has just risen by £79, my home buildings and contents also has risen by £90."
In terms of formal complaints with the Financial Ombudsman, Aviva Insurance Limited received 1,016 new general insurance cases in the second half of 2019, down from 1,324 new cases in the first half of 2019.
Aviva Home Insurance Prices
We've gathered pricing data from the Aviva website to give you a general idea of Aviva home insurance quotes. For the purposes of this exercise, we quoted for a 30-year-old policyholder living in London for a home they own (either outright or mortgaged).
Insurance quotes can vary significantly from day to day and according to your individual details, so please just use the following data for educational purposes only; your quotes may reflect a large degree of variation. Additionally, insurance policies across different companies can be difficult to compare directly, as they can vary in terms of excess, cover amounts, etc.
Aviva Home Insurance Add-On Costs
With so many add-ons available for an extra charge, it can be useful to have an idea of the cost of these optional features.
| Aviva Home Insurance Extras | Approximate Add-On Cost |
|---|---|
| No Claims Discount (Contents) | £4 |
| No Claims Discount (Buildings) | £9 |
| Bicycles (£1,000) | £20 |
| Bicycles (£3,000) | £20 |
| Accidental Damage (Contents - Limited) | £25 |
| Accidental Damage (Buildings - Limited) | £37 |
| Accidental Damage (Contents - Extra) | £126 |
| Accidental Damage (Buildings - Limited) | £94 |
| Legal | £30.89 |
| £20,000 of Valuables | £39 |
| Home Emergency | £76 |
Aviva Home Insurance Premiums by Excess
Aviva gives the option to choose between a number of excess amounts, between £100 and £1,000 (the standard amount is £200). How does the premium drop as the excess rises?
Aviva Buildings Insurance: What's Covered?
Aviva Buildings cover protects against calamities such as fire, explosion, flood, storm, smoke, being hit by a vehicle, water escaping from/freezing in pipes, tanks, etc., theft, subsidence, falling trees or branches, etc. Exclusions include (but are not limited to) loss or damage cost by frost, by storm to fences, gates and hedges, damage to solid floors as a result of water escaping from the home, damage that happens slowly over time, etc.
Aviva Buildings Cover Limits
| Buildings | Standard Limit |
|---|---|
| Buildings sum insured | Unlimited |
| Loss of rent/cost of alternative accommodation | £80,000 (or 20% of the buildings sum insured if higher) |
| Replacement locks | £1,000 |
| Tracing and accessing leaks | £5,000 |
| Emergency access | Up to Buildings sum insured |
| Public liability | £5,000,000 |
Aviva Contents Insurance: What's Covered?
Aviva Contents insurance provides an unlimited amount of cover as standard, for financial protection in case of fire, storm, flood, leaks, theft, subsidence, etc.
Beware that if you move house, items like personal money, jewellery, watches, and items of gold/platinum are not covered for accidental damage/theft during a professional removal/storage under the standard Contents cover.
Aviva Contents Cover Limits
| Contents | Standard Limit |
|---|---|
| Contents sum insured | Unlimited |
| Valuables (total) | £10,000 (but a higher limit is available if you need it) |
| Valuables (single article limit) | £2,000 |
| Personal money | £750 |
| Home office equipment | £5,000 |
| Contents temporarily removed from your home | £5,000 |
| Contents in garden | £1,500 |
| Theft from garage(s) | £2,500 (sublimit for theft claims) |
| Theft from outbuilding (s) | £2,500 (sublimit for theft claims) |
| Garden re-landscaping | £2,500 in total (Limit any one plant £250) |
| Replacement locks | £1,000 |
| Food in freezer | £1,000 |
| Leakage of heating fuel and metered water | £2,000 |
| Loss of rent /cost of alternative accommodation | £10,000 |
| Fatal injury benefit | £5,000 |
| Household removals | Up to contents sum insured |
| Emergency access | Up to contents sum insured |
| Occupiers and personal liability | £5,000,000 |
| Employers liability | £10,000,000 |
| Tenants liability | £15,000 |
Note: Valuables include jewellery, watches, gold/silver/other precious metal items, stamp/coin/medal collections, paintings and other works of art.