Admiral home insurance | Policies reviewed and compared

It’s essential to go through the small print whenever you take out a home insurance policy, looking for the exclusion clauses and any other details that may be relevant to your circumstances. 

Our experts analysed Admiral’s small print and discovered a number of important clauses. 

Where are you covered?

There are several conditions included in Admiral’s small print regarding your location:

• Admiral home insurance covers homes in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Admiral covers pedal cycles up to £350 anywhere in the world if Contents Cover is purchased
• Optional Cover: For personal possessions, specified bikes and specified items you have asked to cover away from home, Admiral covers you anywhere in the world
• Under its Platinum policy, Admiral covers personal possessions anywhere in the world

Policy exclusions

There are several notable exclusions to policy options that are included in Admiral’s insurance summary documents. These exclusions apply to Admiral policies:

Contents cover exclusions

• Money: Theft of money from your home unless force and violence have been used to enter or exit.
• Garage and Outbuildings: Theft from garages and outbuildings.

Buildings cover exclusions

• Accidental Damage: This does not cover liquid damage to mobile phones.
• Storm: Loss or damage to gates, fences and hedges.
• Trace and access: There is no cover for any work required to remove and replace any part of the buildings to find the source of a leak.

Combined Buildings and Contents cover exclusions

• Personal Possessions Cover: A claim for theft from a vehicle is only valid if the item was hidden from view in a closed glove compartment, locked boot, or concealed luggage compartment, with the car securely locked.
• Empty homes: Loss or damage under many sections of your policy if your home is unfurnished or is left unoccupied for more than 60 days.
• People you know: Malicious damage, theft or attempted theft caused by you, your family or anybody lawfully in the property unless force and violence has been used to enter or exit your home.
• Non-storm conditions: Admiral will not pay for loss or damage from wind, rain, snow, or sleet unless caused by a storm, as defined in the policy booklet.
• Escape of water: As the result of taps being left on (this may be covered if you have added Accidental Damage Cover).
• Pets: Loss or damage caused by chewing, scratching, tearing, or fouling by domestic pets.
• Gradually operating causes: Any loss or damage caused by anything that happens gradually, including wear and tear.
• Boiler and Home Emergency Cover: If your home is unoccupied for more than 30 days in a row, this cover is invalidated.
• Claim notification: Admiral won’t cover any emergency not reported within 48 hours of it being discovered.
• Boiler and heating: A partial failure to your heating or hot water is excluded; the failure has to be total.
• Boilers or heating system: Any boiler or heating system outside your home is not covered unless this provides the main source of heating for your home.
• Trace and access: The cost of any work to find the source of the emergency is not covered.
• Maintenance: Admiral won’t cover any normal maintenance.
  
• Claim limit: You cannot make more than two claims per period of insurance.
  
• Claim exclusion period: You cannot claim for the first seven days of your policy.

Read our glossary of home insurance terms.

Home insurance excess is a pre-agreed amount you must pay towards any claim. It is either deducted when your claim is settled or requested separately. 

Compulsory buildings excess and compulsory contents excess

These excesses apply to all buildings or contents claims and are an amount set by Admiral, which varies depending on your individual circumstances. Typically, however, the compulsory excess is around £100.

The following compulsory excesses relate to specific situations and replace those shown on your Policy Schedule:

• Subsidence: £1,000 for Buildings claims
• Escape of Water: From £500
• Flood: £250 

Voluntary excess

This is the excess selected when arranging cover. You can choose how much voluntary excess is added to the compulsory excess, with the total needing to be paid before Admiral will settle your claim. The amount for voluntary excess ranges from £100 to £1,000, and the higher the sum, the lower your premiums will be. However, you should ensure you can afford the voluntary excess in the event of a claim.  

Admiral’s Home Emergency and Boiler Emergency covers have no excess to pay. 

No claims discount

If no claims are made on your home insurance over the course of a year, you could receive a discount on your premium for the following year. Most policies allow you to build this discount for up to five years, providing no claims are submitted. Some insurers provide the option to protect your no claims period, although this usually incurs a fee which is added to your premium.

No claims discounts are available on every Admiral home insurance policy, and each claim is considered before deciding whether it negatively impacts your no claims discount. It should be noted, however, that boiler emergency and home emergency claims do not usually affect any discounts.

If you need to claim on your home insurance, Admiral has an online process to follow. Claims can be made by phone if preferred.

1. Initially, you are asked to confirm whether your home is safe, with a 24-hour helpline number given if you are concerned: 0333 220 2035*. However, there is an automated process to navigate before you can speak to someone. This process involves a minimum of three steps. Our researchers found that, once this was completed, the phone was answered by a person within three rings. In an emergency, a rapid response could be critical, and a three-ring answer is generally considered to be an acceptable time frame.
2. If you continue your claim online, you are asked whether it is a new claim or part of an existing claim.
3. For a new claim, you are given three options – Boiler or Home Emergency Cover claim, Family Legal Protection claim, or any other household claim. 
4. To continue an ongoing claim, you can chat with Admiral’s online claims experts, speak to them on the phone during office hours, or log in to your MyAccount to manage the claim. 
5. For a Family Legal Protection claim, there is the option to download a form to complete. 
6. If you decide to ring, you are immediately given several recorded options. The route you follow by pressing the relevant numbers on your phone keypad is simple and clear to comprehend, with many variables considered.  
7. Once through the automated process, our researchers found a person answered their calls within three rings. However, there doesn’t appear to be any way to bypass the automated service and talk to someone earlier in the process.

Claims: 0333 220 2090* 

24/7 home emergency line: 0333 220 2035*

Admiral office hours:

• Monday to Friday: 8am to 6pm 
• Saturday: 9am to 4pm 
• Sunday: Closed

*Calls to 03 numbers will cost no more than calls to national geographic numbers (starting 01 or 02) from both mobiles and landlines.

Admiral home insurance has a UK-based call centre available during office hours. Its emergency phone line, however, is open 24/7. Both services have an automated process to follow before you can speak to someone, but our researchers found the customer service personnel to be friendly and helpful. 

Admiral also has an online webchat service, email and a downloadable mobile app (for both iOS and Android). If you are an account holder, your policy can be managed through MyAccount. The details for contact options are easily found on the website. 

Our researchers found their emails received replies in around 30 minutes during office hours. The automated phone service took a minimum of four steps before our calls rang through to a person. We were able to talk to someone within four rings on Admiral’s main phone number and three on its emergency 24-hour line, which was tested across 24-hour periods. Online reviews, however, suggest this is not always the case. 

Trustpilot has a number of customers reporting long waits to speak to someone in the first instance, no replies to emails, and Admiral taking time to resolve claims. Some customers reported that it took around three weeks to resolve their claims, which could be considered an acceptable time frame from application to resolution.

Admiral has a Trustpilot score of 3.3, with more than 15,750 online reviews, of which our researcher read almost 500 randomly selected reviews. Four and five-star reviews make up 62 per cent of the total, with 31 per cent giving Admiral insurance a one-star review. It should be noted that these figures also include car, pet, and travel insurance products. 

“I highly recommend. I recently made a claim on Admiral home insurance and it was straight forward and quickly dealt with. I’ll definitely be sticking with Admiral in the future.” 

• Laina, via Trustpilot

“I’m happy with my Admiral insurance overall in that the price was very competitive, but the number of questions I had to give the sales person, who already had the answers I entered when filling out my requirements, was to me a waste of time, having to justify my decisions, which were agreed in due course plus the time wasting listening to the house music which meant a call of over forty minutes, which I won’t be making again when I next take insurance.”

• Tim Mitchell, via Trustpilot

“Excellent customer service. I wanted to call to organise my home insurance and Joey from Admiral was beyond helpful and efficient. I can’t recommend Admiral enough based on the customer care and fair price.” 

• Rachel Mallinson, via Trustpilot

Defaqto provides unbiased ratings and in-depth information on services and products, allowing consumers, financial institutions and financial advisors to make highly informed decisions. Defaqto’s researchers analyse market developments, conduct consumer research, and meet with industry experts to finalise its reports. 

Defaqto awards Admiral home insurance policies:

      ★★★ Admiral Cover home insurance

★★★★★ Admiral Gold home insurance

★★★★★ Admiral Platinum home insurance

Our experts compared four home insurance companies to Admiral. 

Only Admiral and Axa offer three policy levels, with Admiral providing buildings and combined buildings and contents insurance across all three levels, and Admiral Cover also offering contents insurance as a separate policy option. Axa’s cover across its three levels offers contents and buildings cover separately. Aviva, More Than, and Esure have two levels of cover each, with More Than providing contents, buildings, and combined options. 

Out of the five home insurance companies that were compared, Esure offers the most basic of the policies – just one level of buildings and contents cover – while Admiral’s policies are the most comprehensive, allowing a broad range of tailored options. 

Whilst Admiral has the lowest Trustpilot rating of the five companies analysed, its Defaqto score is among the highest.

Admiral’s home insurance policies are designed to suit all budgets, offering three levels – Admiral Cover at the lower end of the price scale, and Platinum delivering a more comprehensive option at the higher end. Each level has a broad range of cover included as standard, with options to fully customise your contents and buildings cover to suit your circumstances. 

Independent Advisor’s researchers found the claims process user-friendly, with phone calls and emails answered in three rings and 30 minutes, respectively. Whilst this is contrary to some customer reviews, our team were satisfied that, generally, the service compared favourably to other insurance providers. With a Defaqto score of five stars, their experts appear to agree with our findings. 

Compared to other providers, Admiral’s policies and broad scope of optional extras make it a good choice for homeowners looking for a fully customisable cover. If, for example, a customer has one costly item of jewellery, a rare collection of garden plants, or a premium range bike, Admiral has options to cover those without large impacts on the price of the overall policy. 

Overall, we found that Admiral offers a good range of home insurance products and delivers a competitive service for its customers.