Home insurance in Germany

Home insurance or household contents insurance (Hausratversicherung) is necessary if you want to cover yourself for potential burglaries, damage, water issues, storm or robbery etc. This type of insurance covers mainly moveable property such as furniture, clothing, sports equipment and even potentially your kitchen.

Make sure your German home insurance policy covers gross negligence

Home insurance policies in Germany can differ a lot in terms of what is covered with many different options. After reviewing the market and the home insurance policies available, we believe there are two key things to be careful of 1) The insurance coverage value selected and 2) Does the insurance cover gross negligence (grober Fahrlässigkeit)? i.e. for example, are you covered for burglary if you left your window open by accident.

After reviewing the home insurance market, we have found that Gothaer provides the best policy in terms of covering the key elements needed in a policy and also the most competitive on price. However before providing more details on this, we will run you through the key points about home insurance in Germany.

How does German home insurance work and what is covered?

The coverage amount is determined by the replacement value of your belongings. The general rule the insurance companies in Germany follow is that you should look to insure yourself for EUR650 per square metres of your flat. So if your flat is 60 square metres, then this would equate to a total coverage amount of €39,000. While you can insure your apartment for less, we would be careful about this because then the insurance company may deem you underinsured your property and may not fully pay out if you had to claim.

Home insurance will cover damage owing to fire, water, storm, burglary, robbery etc. Although we would note for a robbery to be covered there must be evidence that force was used. As mentioned previously, one of the biggest things to be aware of is if your policy includes cover for gross negligence (i.e. damage due to your error, such as leaving a window slightly open and a robbery occurring. Some insurance policies no cover for gross negligence, some provide cover for this only up to a certain amount while only the better insurance policies provide full coverage for this (as per the Gothaer policy we highlight).

Other things to note about German home insurance

• If you are moving house, you can take your policy with you. However you must inform your insurance company about this as you may have to pay more, or potentially less depending on the square metres of your new apartment.
• Also, if there is building work taking place on the apartment block that includes the use of scaffolding, then this must be reported as it increases the chances of theft.
• Finally, it must also be reported to the insurance company if there will be long periods of absence away from the flat as again this implies a high chance of theft or damage occurring.
• Bicycle insurance can also be included on most policies for an additional fee.

Which home insurance do we recommend?

As mentioned previously, not all home insurance policies in Germany are the same. Our search through the German home insurance market has focused on policies that provide 1) Full provision in the case of gross negligence, 2) Provide a competitive price.

We have found Gothaer to provide the best home insurance as per the previous two criteria. To show you the pricing of their home insurance policies we have summarised the cost below of a single person aged 30 living in Munich. Note however that the prices will vary depending on where you live, for instance the premiums will likely be a lot higher in Berlin due to higher crime rates etc there.

Our recommendation would be the Gothaer ‘Top’ package as this includes gross negligence cover.

To provide a further overview of costs we have included a comparison of the Gothaer ‘Top’ policy vs other popular providers Ergo and Ostangler.

It takes only a few minutes to complete the form and have peace of mind

Below we highlight the process in completing the home insurance sign up process:

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