Home insurance is a special form of property insurance that is designed to protect all aspects of a private home. Along with the dwelling itself, home insurance (Wohngebäudeversicherung) can also protect the possessions inside and outside of a home, extra dwellings on a property, and liability.
The level and type of protection provided by a home insurance contract is directly related to the price of ongoing premiums, with more expensive policies generally offering a much higher degree of protection. In many contracts, it is up to individual home owners to list any additional items that they want insured, which are attached to the policy in the case of their loss. The financial worth of the possessions will have a direct impact on the premium prices, as will things like weather protection, liability coverage, and other additional coverage options.

Home insurance usually comes in the form of a term contract, meaning that it is set up for a fixed period of time. Ongoing premiums normally need to be paid to keep the policy in force, although various forms of perpetual home insurance are available in some jurisdictions. For people who live in hurricane, cyclone, or earthquake prone areas, it is often possible to set up additional levels of environmental protection for an extra cost. However, no matter how much you are willing to pay, many insurance firms place exclusions on certain types of protection. For example, certain kinds of damage related to environmental events or acts of war may not be able to be covered. In most cases however, levels of home insurance protection are directly linked to the price of ongoing premiums.

While the categorisation of home and property insurance products does differ widely around the world, there are a few basic kinds of home insurance products that are similar in most jurisdictions. These include protection of a dwelling, protection of additional structures, protection of possessions inside a home, protection of possessions outside a home, loss of use protection, liability protection, and additional coverage options. Individual home insurance contracts can be compared through Interned comparison websites, where premium prices can be directly related to coverage levels and categories.