All Risk Cover for Home Contents

The first type of All Risk cover applies to the contents inside your home and is an optional extra you’ll need to add to your standard policy. A classic example is accidental damage cover — imagine a cigarette burn or a paint spill ruining a carpet. These are everyday mishaps that most people never anticipate, yet they happen more often than you’d think. Without All Risk on your contents, that repair or replacement cost comes straight out of your pocket.

The good news is that this type of cover is relatively inexpensive to add to an existing policy. For most households, it provides excellent peace of mind against the kind of everyday accidents that a standard policy simply won’t touch. If you have children, pets, or simply lead a busy home life, it is well worth considering. It is one of those additions where the small extra cost is easy to justify when weighed against the potential expense of an uncovered claim.

All Risk Cover for the Building

The second type covers the structure and fabric of the building itself. A useful example: if your driveway was not originally constructed to bear the weight of a modern car, and the surface cracks as a result, All Risk cover for the building would pick up that claim. Without it, a standard policy would offer no protection whatsoever, leaving you to cover the repair costs yourself.

At ExpatHomeCover, we rarely recommend this cover unless the property is relatively new. Our reasoning is straightforward: if a home is more than five years old, any structural weaknesses resulting from poor construction will usually have already made themselves apparent. Problems caused by substandard building work tend to surface early. For newer builds, however, where construction quality is still being tested over time, it can be a sensible and worthwhile safeguard.

All Risk Cover for Valuable Items

This is the most popular type of All Risk cover — and for many expats, the most important. It protects high-value personal possessions against loss or theft, with no geographic restriction. Most commonly, this means engagement rings, watches, necklaces, and other jewellery of significant value, though other portable valuables can also be included.

What makes this cover particularly compelling is its worldwide scope. Whether you are travelling within Europe, heading further afield on holiday, or simply going about your daily life, your valuables remain fully covered. For expats who move between countries or travel frequently, this global protection is a considerable benefit that no standard home insurance policy can replicate.

So why doesn’t everyone take it out? The honest answer is cost — and it is a fair concern.

How Much Does All Risk Insurance Cost for Valuables?

As a straightforward rule of thumb, All Risk cover for valuable items is priced at approximately:

For lower-value items, this is very manageable — a €2,000 engagement ring, for example, would cost around €64 per year to cover. But once you are insuring pieces worth €10,000 or more — a fine watch, a high-value diamond ring, or a combined jewellery collection — the annual premium can climb into a significant figure that warrants careful consideration.

There is also a secondary cost factor to keep in mind: insurance providers willing to cover high-value items under All Risk tend to price their overall home insurance policies — building and contents — at a higher level than standard insurers. This is simply the nature of dealing with specialist providers who take on greater risk. It is worth factoring this broader premium impact into your total cost of cover when making a decision, rather than looking at the All Risk add-on cost in isolation.

The bottom line: All Risk cover for valuables offers excellent, wide-reaching protection, but it pays to be selective about which items you include. We can help you identify what is genuinely worth insuring and find the most competitive rate available for your specific situation.