Sainsbury's Home Insurance Review

Sainsbury's Home Insurance Review

Good for

  • Robust features
  • Replacing keys and locks if your keys are stolen or lost
  • Contribution towards replacement boiler if necessary
  • Covering mobile phones

Bad for

  • Max of £75,000 Contents cover
  • Underfloor heating not covered by Home Emergency cover
  • High APR for monthly payments

Editor's Rating

4.0/5.0

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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In This Review

Sainsbury's Home Insurance Review: What You Need to Know

Is Sainsbury's Bank home insurance any good? Their customer ratings are solid, quotes are competitive and both of their products ("Home" and "Home Plus") have top-notch ratings for features—but are they right for you? Here's what you should know before you buy a Sainsbury's home insurance policy.

Sainsbury's Home Insurance Key Facts

  • Two plans options: Home and Home Plus
  • Up to £1,000,000 for buildings
  • Up to £75,000 for contents
  • Some accidental damage cover included as standard
  • Home Plus includes Home Emergency and Family Legal extras

Quotes are usually competitive to the UK home insurance market, starting at £110. More detail is available in our section on quote comparison.

Paying Monthly is more expensive if you prefer to spread out your payments. In fact, our recent quote comparison discovered that monthly payments were charged an interest rate of 25.5%, which is pretty high. Competitors like M&S charge a 0% APR on monthly payments.

Nectar Points can be earned by those buying a new Sainsbury's Bank Home Insurance policy direct from their website or over the phone. As of this update, the latest deal for Nectar members was a guaranteed discount and 4,000 points when you buy direct from Sainsbury's Bank and use the promotional code HOME20. This is subject to change.

Storm and Flood Damage cover doesn't include damage to hedges, fences, gates or radio/TV/satellite dishes; related damage by frost, subsidence, heave or landslip is also excluded.

Valuables like laptops, mobile phones and jewellery are covered against theft and loss through Contents cover whilst at home, up to £2,000 per item (which you can increase) and £25,000 in total. If you want cover for accidents at home you'll need to buy the optional Accidental Damage for Contents cover. For cover for these types of items away from home you'll need to add the Personal Possessions cover, an amount of your choosing up to £10,000 (this includes mobile phones).

Accidental Damage to the following is included as standard, subject to conditions as with everything else:

  • Contents: TV, DVD players, games consoles, Desktop PCs, laptops, Electronic tablets and notebooks
  • Buildings: Fixed ceramic hob, sanitary ware, fixed glass, plus services including drains, pipes and cables that connect to your home

Optional Extras

To enhance your home insurance cover, you can add Personal Possessions (i.e., cover for belongings away from home), Accidental Damage, Home Emergency, Family Legal and extended Key and Lock cover.

Home Emergency Cover: 24/7 assistance to help with emergencies such as boiler breakdowns to kitchen floods

Family Legal Protection Cover: Legal fee cover if you have to go to court for a private legal dispute

Personal Possessions Cover: Protects your belongings when you’re out of the house

Key Cover: Protection if you lose your keys

Bike Cover away from home: Cover for your bicycle (bought with Personal Possessions Cover)

Enhanced Accidental Cover for buildings: e.g., putting your foot through the attic floor

Enhanced accidental Cover for contents: e.g., paint spill on a new carpet

Sainsbury's Home Insurance Customer Reviews, Complaints and Ratings

Sainsbury's Bank has earned 4.1 stars out of 5 by customers on Trustpilot, up from 4.0 last year and 3.8 the year before. This rating reflects reviews from around 10,000 customers across all of their finance and insurance products from car to home to pet. We've scoured the reviews looking for comments on their home insurance specifically. Here are some real-life customer comments:

"Refused to renew my home insurance because I’m having home improvements done which is surely not an unusual thing for a homeowner to do in this day and age."

"Home insurance is not a good buy as they do not answer the phone and do not respond to complaints. Avoid them as the service is shambolic. 3 different underwriters in less than a year..."

"Straight forward and a reasonable price for good cover."

"Really simple to apply for Home Insurance and set up. The whole experience probably took no longer than twenty five minutes."

"Placed my home insurance with Sains Bank as they offered £30 worth of points with a Nectar voucher. Entered voucher code but no mention of the points being added. Will keep under review and chase up if they're not added."

"Took out Sainsburys home and contents insurance and needed to cancel the policy within the fourteen day cooling off period before the insurance had even started and before I received any documents, only to be charged £20 for cancellation."

"I took out a home insurance policy and realised I put in the wrong date, tried to call but cannot get through on the phone for hours, the website has hardly any features, so you will be charged for most changes it seems."

"The customer 'service' phone number waiting message tells you to go online to service your policy, yet there's no mechanism online to cancel the policy. The online portal is woeful in terms of what you can actual amend. You have to call, then encounter a long wait before anyone answers."

We should point out that all the reviews we read were related to the sales or customer experience (e.g., reflecting value for money, ease of purchase and ease of contacting customer service), not the claims experience.

Sainsbury's Home Insurance Price Comparison

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Comparison panel with over 3 dozen UK insurance brands. Only one form to fill out.

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We found that Sainsbury's home insurance plans are mid market in price. We gathered pricing data from the Sainsbury's website to give you a general idea of how Sainsbury's home insurance quotes compare to others in the market, using a 35-year-old policyholder living in a mortgaged, 2-bedroom property in the south, who had made no claims in the past 5 years.

chart comparing Sainsbury's home insurance premiums costs to market averages
Here's how Sainsbury's home insurance prices compare

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 and insurance policies across different companies can be difficult to compare directly.

Sainsbury's Home (Buildings and Contents) Insurance Add-On Costs

Here are estimated costs of add-on extras for a mortgaged, owner-occupied, 3-bed semi when you buy a Sainsbury's buildings & contents home insurance policy. The value of Home Emergency and Family Legal cover—included as standard in Home Plus policies—is £71.49.

Sainsbury's Home Insurance Extras
Accidental Damage (buildings and contents)£51.86
Enhanced Key Cover£17.99
Family Legal£26.50
Home Emergency Cover£44.99
Personal Possessions Away From Home (£2k)£13.72

Sainsbury's Home Cover: What's Covered

Sainsbury's Bank home insurance protects against incidents like fire, flood, theft, vandalism, subsidence (depending on cause) and other similar events. They offer two level of cover, with the higher-tier Home Plus plan including Home Emergency and Family Legal as standard.

Sainsbury's Bank Home Insurance CoverageHomeHome Plus
Buildings sum insuredup to £1 millionup to £1 million
Trace and accessIncludedIncluded
Contents sum insuredup to £75,000up to £75,000
Single valuable item limitup to £2,000up to £2,000
Garden contentsup to £2,000up to £2,000
Bikes (at home)up to £750up to £750
Bikes (away from home)Optional as part of Personal Possessions cover
Mobile phones and gadgets (at home)IncludedIncluded
Mobile phones and gadgets (away from home)Optional as part of Personal Possessions cover
Accidental damageIncludedIncluded
Alternative accommodation£50,000 (or £15,000 for contents only insurance)£50,000 (or £15,000 for contents only insurance)
Home EmergencyOptionalIncluded
Family LegalOptionalIncluded
Personal Possessions (Away from home)OptionalOptional
Key CoverOptionalOptional
Extra Accidental Damage CoverOptionalOptional

FAQs

Sainsbury’s home insurance is underwritten by U K Insurance Limited, registered office: The Wharf, Neville Street, Leeds LS1 4AZ. Registered in England No. 1179980. U K Insurance Limited provides insurance for many well-known brands such as NatWest, Virgin Money, HSBC and more. U K Insurance Limited is part of the same group as Direct Line and Churchill.
You can earn double base Nectar points on shopping and fuel during the first policy year of a new Sainsbury's home insurance policy. You'll need to disclose your Nectar card number when you apply. There are conditions, of course. Learn more here.
It depends. Mobile phones are covered against theft from the home if you have Contents cover. Plus, if you add Personal Possessions cover to your policy then mobile phones are also covered against theft, loss or accidental damage outside your home, including up to 60 days abroad in any policy year.
Call 0345 266 1660 to cancel a Sainsbury's home insurance policy. You may be charged a £25 administration fee to cancel.

Other Useful Information

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Erin Yurday

Erin Yurday is the Founder and Editor of NimbleFins. Prior to NimbleFins, she worked as an investment professional and as the finance expert in Stanford University's Graduate School of Business case writing team. Read more on LinkedIn.

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