Property & Home
For most households and investors, the home is the single largest asset on the balance sheet. The exposures attached to it (fire, weather, theft, liability, alternative-accommodation costs) can exceed standard cover limits when they arrive together, which they often do.
OceanMind places residential and investment-property cover sized to actual replacement cost and real-world asset mix, from single dwellings through landlord portfolios and high-value households.
Cover
What this typically covers
The house itself, and the things fixed to the ground around it. Walls, roof, the pool, the wall along the boundary. What you keep inside it is the next clause.
The physical structure (walls, roof, fixtures, boundary walls, pools, and outbuildings) against fire, storm, theft, and accidental damage.
Everything you would take with you if you moved. Replacement cost means you are paid what the item costs to buy again now, not what somebody would give you for a nine-year-old fridge.
Everything inside the home (furniture, appliances, clothing, electronics) on a replacement-cost basis.
The things that leave the house with you. A laptop, a wedding ring, a bicycle, a camera. Ordinary contents cover mostly stops at the front door, which is where most of these get lost.
Jewellery, watches, laptops, cameras, and bicycles covered worldwide, not just at home.
Someone who is not part of your household is hurt at your place, or their property is damaged, and it comes back to you. The dog and the delivery driver is the version people laugh at, and the version that keeps happening.
Protection if a visitor is injured on your property or your dog bites someone.
The house you own and somebody else lives in. It is a different policy from the one on your own home, because the risks are the tenant, the rent stopping, and the building sitting empty between leases.
Landlord cover for rental properties: buildings, loss of rent, and tenant-related liability.
The two claims South African households actually make. Insurers price them separately because they come in so often, and the excess on them is frequently lower or nothing at all.
Specific cover for the two most common household claims, often with low or no excess.
Limits
What this will not cover
Underinsurance is settled proportionally
If the sums insured are lower than what it would cost to rebuild or replace, most wordings pay in that same proportion. A house insured for half its rebuild cost gets half a claim, and the discovery happens at the worst possible moment.
Wear, tear, and maintenance
Damp, rust, a roof that has been going for years, and anything you have been putting off. Cover answers for the sudden, not for the overdue.
A house left standing empty
Most wordings cut cover back once a home has been unoccupied beyond a stated number of days. Tell us before a place goes quiet, rather than after something happens in it.
Anything left in a parked car
Laptops and bags taken from a vehicle are excluded outright under most all-risks wordings, or cut back far enough to make little difference. It is the most common personal claim there is, and the most commonly declined.
Claim
When you claim
Make it safe, then get the case number
Stop the loss getting worse: close the stopcock, board the window. Theft and malicious damage need a SAPS case number, and it is far easier to obtain on the day than in the week that follows.
Photograph it before anyone clears up
Photograph the damage and keep what is broken. An assessor who arrives to a tidy room is assessing your description of the loss rather than the loss itself.
Repair, replace, or cash in lieu
Most household claims settle through the insurer's panel of repairers and suppliers. A cash settlement is usually the lower of the options on offer, and we will tell you which one you are being given.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Replacement cost is rebuild cost, not market value or purchase price. Most underinsured buildings are underinsured because owners confuse the two. We run a current-cost calculation using building rates per square metre and factor in site-specific complications like access, finishes, and heritage requirements.
Usually yes under standard buildings cover, but excesses and limits vary widely between insurers. Because these are the two most common household claims, the fine print here matters more than almost any other wording.
Standard contents cover usually excludes items once they leave the property. A portable-items (all-risks) extension covers them worldwide, specified individually for high-value pieces or as a sum for general items.
Personal cover generally excludes business property and business-related liability. A small home-business extension or a separate commercial policy is typically needed. We scope this on what the business does day to day.
If your rental property becomes uninhabitable after an insured event (fire, storm), loss of rent cover pays out monthly income while repairs happen. For any property carrying a bond, this is usually essential.