Most misconceptions about home insurance don't come from ignorance – they come from bad experience, typically with policies nobody has looked at in a decade. Here are the six most common lines you'll hear, and what the facts actually show behind them.
- Behind most "the insurer didn't pay" stories sits underinsurance, missing cover, or a maintenance-related exclusion – all three are preventable.
- An old, cheap policy tends to turn out expensive at claim time – the sums insured and the scope of cover go stale, the damage doesn't.
- A condominium's shared building policy does NOT replace home insurance – the two protect different property.
"The insurer won't pay anyway."
The vast majority of payout disputes come from three sources: the sum insured was too low (proportional settlement), there was no cover for the item that was damaged, or a maintenance shortfall lay behind the loss. All three are decided when you sign and at renewal – not at claim time. A well set-up policy is good precisely because we've ruled these out in advance; we write honestly about common claim rejections.
A close relative of this myth belongs here too: "the insurer will find a loophole anyway". The policy wording isn't a collection of loopholes, it's a contract: whatever's covered in it and properly documented, the insurer pays out for – and the vast majority of disputes trace back to the three preventable causes above.
And because trust runs both ways: if a claim does get stuck or becomes disputed, there's an orderly path for that too – from the insurer's complaints process through to help from the broker. We have a separate article on this: a stuck or disputed claim.
"Ours is an old policy, and it's cheap – that's fine."
The premium may be friendly – but the sum the house is insured for reflects building costs from years ago. If rebuilding costs have meaningfully risen since then, the policy has quietly become underinsured. Our articles on the hidden cost of cheap cover and on indexation show how this mechanism works – and the fix too: an annual review, and sums that reflect real values.
The other quiet weakness of an old policy is its scope of cover: one drafted fifteen years ago won't mention solar panels or smart devices, and often has no liability cover either. Its premium is low – but more and more of your actual life today falls outside it.
"We live in a shared building, the building's policy protects us."
The condominium's shared building policy typically covers the building – the common property and the structural parts of the individual flats; it typically does not cover the contents, the value inside your flat, or your personal liability. The exact boundary is set jointly by the condominium's policy and the founding deed. The two aren't competing products, they complement each other: see where mine ends and the building's begins.
"It covers everything – the agent told me so." / "It never pays for itself." / "There's no rush."
"It covers everything": no such product exists – scope of cover, limits and exclusions always exist, and they can always be found out (the map). "It never pays for itself": insurance isn't an investment, it's a transfer of risk – its "payoff" is the one claim your family's budget never has to carry. "There's no rush": damage doesn't check your calendar first; setting up cover, though, really is quick – the online calculator (in Hungarian) gives you a starting point in minutes, and we'll talk through the rest in 20 minutes. The full collection: myth buster.
A question about your own home? Run the numbers in minutes with the online calculator (in Hungarian), or book a free 20-minute consultation →
