When you take over a new home, a thousand things happen at once: technical handover, the mortgage, the land registry, the move - insurance can easily slip to the bottom of the list. Yet the logic is simple: a different kind of protection is at work while the building is under construction, but from the moment the keys change hands, your own home insurance needs to be live - and the warranty on your new home is no substitute for it.
- The reasonable start of home insurance cover is the day you take possession (get the keys) - with a mortgage, the bank typically already requires it before it will release the loan.
- Warranty (guarantee), statutory warranty for defects, and insurance: three different kinds of protection.
- Smart-home devices, a heat pump, solar panels, premium windows and doors: it's worth naming these new assets in the policy too.
From when should you take out cover?
The watershed moment is taking possession: once you get the keys, risk typically passes to you, so cover needs to be in force by then at the latest. It's worth arranging the policy a few days ahead and timing the start of cover for handover day - our article on that covers the details. If the home is being built or bought with a mortgage, the bank typically requires live insurance and the mortgagee clause as a condition of releasing the loan - we describe how that works in our mortgage article; for the precise requirements, the loan agreement and the bank's information prevail.
While it's being built: a different game altogether
While the house is being built, the risks are different too: scaffolding, open structures, stored materials, contractors on site. That's not home-insurance territory - it's the domain of construction-all-risks cover and contractor liability, which we cover in detail on our sister site, epites.biz (in Hungarian). Home insurance is for the finished, occupied home: it steps in once you take possession of the property. If you're managing the build yourself, timing the handover between the two kinds of cover deserves particular attention - it's worth agreeing this before you sign.
Warranty and insurance: different jobs entirely
With a new build, it's a fair question: why insurance, if there's a warranty? The answer is about scope. The builder's warranty - both the contractual warranty and the statutory warranty for defects - covers problems with the construction work: cracked flooring, a door or window that won't close properly, faulty building services - and rests with the builder or seller, under whatever rules are in force at the time. Insurance, by contrast, is for unexpected damage: storm, hail, fire, burglary, burst pipes - these happen in new houses too, and the warranty doesn't cover them. Nor does any warranty protect your contents - furniture, appliances, your wardrobe. The two aren't in competition: one puts defects right, the other restores damage. In a new-build development, the condominium's shared policy also enters the picture - but the values inside your flat, and your contents, are still your own policy's job.
A modern home, modern assets
In new-build homes, a significant share of the value sits in the technology: a heat pump, solar panels, a smart-home system, fitted appliances, large glazed surfaces. At signing, it's worth going through these item by item - are they included in the sum insured, do they need an optional cover - our map of optional covers helps with that.
Estimate contents at today's replacement cost too, not with the old flat's figures - our moving-house article runs through the insurance tasks that come with a move. The next step: run the numbers in minutes, then we'll fit the details to your new home.
A question about your own home? Run the numbers in minutes with the online calculator (in Hungarian), or book a free 20-minute consultation →
