Insurance Guide

Winter is full-on in HK, with temperatures reaching below 10 degrees at night, making living in the non-isolated and non-centrally heated Hong Kong apartments a challenge. While we at Kwiksure know that heating your space is a must during winter months, the right safety precautions have to be in place to avoid a potentially life-threatening catastrophe. Below, we outline some of the main causes of apartment fires and ways you can prevent setting your apartment ablaze.

Watching your home and personal belongings go up in flames can be a traumatic experience with stress and confusion that lasts long after the event. Fires are distressing enough without the added stress of not knowing what to do afterward. Aside from injuries that may have been suffered, the damage to your property can include soot, burns, smoke, and even water damage, which can take some time to return to normal. In this Kwiksure article, we’ll cover some tips on the do’s and don’ts so you can be better prepared in the event of a fire.

Given the skyrocketing prices and rents of residential real estate in Hong Kong, most homeowners will purchase a home insurance policy to protect their property and household contents. But apart from common benefits such as property damage from fire, the coverage scopes of most home insurance policies are in actuality much wider than what you may expect. In today’s Kwiksure article, we will go through 12 home insurance coverages items that you may not realize you have in your home insurance policy.

Have you ever heard stories of people suddenly becoming homeless after a disaster that struck their home? It might have happened due to fire or a hurricane or other perils that damaged the apartment and made it uninhabitable and left entire families on the streets. For all those who own or rent a house, and of course, have a home and fire insurance plan in place, making sure that their policy also includes additional living expenses cover, also called the loss of use coverage, is useful in a situation where your place is uninhabitable. Additional living expense covers not only the cost of your new temporary accommodation like a hotel but also any additional living expenses such as for food, clothes etc, while your house is being fixed. The idea of additional living expense cover is to maintain the standard of living you had before the damage of your property.

Have you ever heard stories of people suddenly becoming homeless after a disaster that struck their home? It might have happened due to fire or a hurricane or other perils that damaged the apartment and made it uninhabitable and left entire families on the streets. For all those who own or rent a house, and of course, have a home and fire insurance plan in place, making sure that their policy also includes additional living expenses cover, also called the loss of use coverage, is useful in a situation where your place is uninhabitable. Additional living expense covers not only the cost of your new temporary accommodation like a hotel but also any additional living expenses such as for food, clothes etc, while your house is being fixed. The idea of additional living expense cover is to maintain the standard of living you had before the damage of your property.

It is important to understand that home insurance is not just one policy. Home insurance policies can be divided into two main categories: home buildings insurance and home contents insurance. Both of these home insurance cover an accidental fire, but in a slightly way, and that’s what our today’s article is about.

Most homeowners in Hong Kong would agree that their home is one of their most valuable assets. The majority of households in the SAR, however, do not have home insurance . In fact, nearly 80% of Hong Kongers do not have their home insured, according to a newly released Home Protection Awareness Study. So, why is there such a low uptake of home insurance here? And, more importantly, why do homeowners need to insure their homes? Read on to find out.

What started out as yet another mid-August typhoon, Typhoon Hato quickly intensified in strength as it barreled down on Hong Kong, unleashing hurricane force winds and rain, prompting the city to raise its first T10 warning in 5 years. As the typhoon raged, videos and reports of damage to homes and property were quick to come in with the SCMP reporting that there could be upwards of HKD 8 billion in losses. This typhoon and the damage it caused has certainly led to many people in the city wondering whether home insurance will cover damage from storms like this. Here, we aim to take a look at what you need to know about home insurance and how it covers damage from typhoons and other major storms.

Hong Kong is a unique city with steep verdant hills running right into the ocean that, while pretty, do limit the urban sprawl common to so many other cities with similar population. Therefore, in order to house 7.7 million people, buildings go up rather than out. This means that many of us are living in high rise apartments that can be among the smallest in the world. These cramped conditions do present a number of risks, chief among them fire. Here we take a look at the different types of home-related insurance available in the city, and an interesting situation revolving around coverage and claim settlement.

The tragic fire in Ngau Tau Kok is finally out and many people have been heaping well-earned praise on the firefighters who battled the blaze for over 100 hours. In the aftermath of this fire however, a number of important questions need to be asked, especially when it comes to storing things in the increasing number of storage units that are cropping up in the city and whether this stuff will be covered by insurance.

The tragic fire in Ngau Tau Kok is finally out and many people have been heaping well-earned praise on the firefighters who battled the blaze for over 100 hours. In the aftermath of this fire however, a number of important questions need to be asked, especially when it comes to storing things in the increasing number of storage units that are cropping up in the city and whether this stuff will be covered by insurance.

In late June 2016 Mercer, one of the world’s largest business consulting firms, released the 2016 version of their annual Cost of Living report . Unsurprisingly, the city at the top as the most expensive place to live is Hong Kong. While there are a number of drivers behind this ranking, it is real estate that is the single biggest reason Hong Kong is so expensive to live in. These days, if anyone wants to purchase a home in the city, they are going to have to take out a mortgage. If you are considering purchasing property in Hong Kong there are a number of things you need to be aware of when it comes to your mortgage, including how it links with fire insurance.