Apartments and houses in the Netherlands are not cheap and their furnishings are also expensive. It is no wonder that property owners in the country of tulips are keen to insure them.
Home or apartment insurance is called in different ways in Dutch, for example woonverzekering or woonhuisverzekering. The word verzekering itself is insurance, and woon is derived from the words woning (apartment) or wonen (to live).
The term opstalverzekering is also often encountered . The word opstal itself means buildings. When we talk about opstalverzekering, we know that it is the insurance of the “bare” apartment or house (walls, structure, roof, installations, etc.), but it does not cover the equipment (movables) inside.
To also insure furniture, appliances and other home furnishings (movables), you need to buy inboedelverzekering . The word inboedel means the furnishings (movables) in a house or apartment.
Some insurers treat woonverzekering and opstalverzekering as synonyms: in both cases, it is insurance for the “bare” apartment or house, without any furnishings.
Sometimes you can also come across another approach, in which woonverzekering is treated as a superordinate term, encompassing both types of insurance. In this approach, we have general home insurance woonverzekering consisting of two elements: opstalverzekering (insurance for the “bare” apartment or house) and inboedelverzekering (insurance for equipment, furnishings and other household goods).
Often, opstal- and inboedelverzekering insurance are sold together. The amount of the premium depends primarily on the amount for which we insure a given property or its equipment and the scope of the insurance. A large house in an expensive district with valuable equipment is worth insuring for a higher amount than an old, cramped apartment with falling apart furniture.
Opstalverzekering insurance is aimed at owners of residential properties. Tenants of rented apartments and houses can also benefit from inboedelverzekering insurance. This is called inboedelverzekering huurhuis (rented apartment equipment insurance). The equipment of rented apartments often belongs largely to the tenants, so it is in their interest to insure these movables.
Inboedelverzekering is insurance against damages such as fire, burglary or flooding. Interestingly, insurers often consider pets, such as cats, dogs or rabbits, as “equipment” of a house or apartment.
There are many insurance companies in the Netherlands offering various types of insurance for property and contents. In addition to basic insurance, more expensive, more comprehensive insurance is often available, covering, for example, expensive works of art in the home.
When looking for the right home and contents insurance for your needs in the Netherlands, it is worth using the many comparison tools available online . You can find them by typing opstalverzekering vergelijken (compare home insurance) into Google.
On the websites of individual insurance companies, you can often use calculators that calculate the monthly premium. Insuring the entire property (opstalverzekering) is usually more expensive than equipping standard equipment.
The amount of the premium depends on many factors, the most important of which is the amount for which we insure the property (usually close to the value of the house or apartment).
According to the experts at the consulting firm Alpina, the approximate annual premium for property insurance (opstalverzekering) can be calculated by assuming a premium of 1.30 euros for every 1,000 euros of property value. So, for a house insured for 300,000 euros, this would be 300 times 1.30 euros, or about 390 euros per year (about 3.2.50 euros per month).
Inboedelverzekering equipment (movable property) insurance is usually cheaper, with the cheapest versions costing a few or a dozen euros a month.