Dubai: Not buying a home insurance and losing all their personal belongings to a fire is one of the costly things UAE tenants have to deal with.
If a fire hits a residential property, tenants can easily lose all their home furnishings and bear the financial loss themselves since landlords or building owners don’t take the responsibility for any destruction to the personal items inside the rented flat.
Recent studies have shown that a huge proportion of the UAE population have not insured their home. Findings from a survey conducted by Qatar Insurance suggested that nine out of ten (91 per cent) of UAE residents don’t have a home insurance. The main reasons most people shy away from insurance are that it is expensive and complicated.
Fire isn't a rare occurrence in the UAE. In recent years, Dubai residents have witnessed a number of fires in residential neighbourhoods that eventually displaced many families and resulted in huge financial losses. Barely a week ago, a fire broke out at an apartment building on The Palm Jumeirah.
According to a new cost-analysis, tenants without insurance will require at least Dh28,000 just to re-furnish a home, or acquire the basic furnishings, from television set and sofa in the living room to the dining tables and appliances in the kitchen – if a fire were to hit their rented flat.
Even if tenants purchase second-hand items, total purchases could set a family back Dh3,460 just to get the kitchen functional again. To furnish the living room, where all the expensive electronic gadgets are kept, the bill could reach up to Dh15,000.
This is why it is more practical for homeowners to just invest in a home insurance policy, because any financial damage incurred in the event of fires will most likely be repaid to the tenant. In fact, according to finance comparison site compareit4me, Dh28,000 is equivalent to 127 years’ worth of home insurance coverage.
“It is considerably less expensive to have their homes covered by home insurance,” the site said. The average home insurance policy sold online costs only Dh220 or Dh20 per month.
“Meaning, for the cost of replacing an entire apartment, a UAE resident could enjoy over 127 years of comprehensive protection for their belongings.”
Jonathan Rawling, chief financial officer at comaprei4me.com, said getting an insurance is especially cheap when compared to the financial loss that tenants have to bear during untoward events.
“People are often deterred from taking out home insurance because there’s a prevalent myth that it’s expensive. However, with the average home insurance policy being sold on our platform amounting to less than Dh20 per month, we’re trying to get the point across that home insurance is actually cheap,” said Rawling.
