Guide to home insurance and working from home

A woman sitting in her lounge busily working

Part-time, full-time, employee or self-employed, there's a move towards spending at least part of the working week based at home. But do you know that if you work from home you need to tell your home insurance company?

That's right. If you don't tell them that you work from home and you make a claim in the future, it may have serious consequences. The insurance company may even decide not to pay out.

But don't panic. We've put together this simple guide to explain how working from home can affect your home insurance.

Working from home as an employee

No commuting, no distractions, flexible working and managing your own time. There are lots of positives to working from home. In fact, it's so popular that 1.5 million employees now say they 'usually' work from home.

You may think, that as an employee, your employer will cover all insurances relating to your employment. And they probably will. But you also need to let your home insurance company know.

Once your insurance company know that you're using your home for 'business use' they will assess whether this could impact your insurance cover. In many cases it won't.

If you're just doing clerical work on behalf of your employer and you don't receive visitors then there probably won't be any change to the terms of your home insurance or the cost. In fact, it may even go down because there is someone in the house more of the time.

LV= already provides cover for office equipment like computers and printers. It comes as standard with our Home Contents Insurance.

If you need to see clients at home though, this may alter your home insurance cover. With additional people coming to the house, you could be seen as more of an insurance risk and your home insurance costs may increase.

Running a business from home

In parallel with the rise in people working from home as an employee, is the rise in people being self-employed. Over 4.6 million people now class themselves as self-employed and many of them run a business from home.

When your home address is also your registered business address then your home insurance company will need to know the nature of your business. They'll want to know:

If you're just using your home for clerical work
Whether you have regular visitors
Whether you store goods at home and what they are
Whether you hold any specialist tools or equipment

They may decide to extend your home contents cover to include your business stock and equipment or they could ask you to take out separate cover for these items.

Extending your insurance cover

To be fully covered for accidents that happen as a result of working from home you could consider taking out extra insurance such as extended accidental cover.

Public liability

This covers you if a visitor to your workplace is injured and makes a claim. It can also cover you if you accidently damage something that belongs to a customer.

Professional indemnity

This covers you if someone complains about the advice or service you have provided. They may sue if the advice you gave them was wrong or cost them money.