Despite a spate of fires – including this week’s blaze at the 34-story Tamweel Tower in Dubai’s Jumeirah Lake Towers – more than 86 percent of the UAE’s residents still do not have home contents insurance, according to our latest survey.
Some 52 percent say they don’t even see cover as a priority, despite the average contents value of a home in the UAE standing at AED 100,000 – 150,000.
Almost everyone (95 percent) agreed there was value in home insurance but 10 percent said they didn’t know how to get it.
[Compare home insurance policies in the UAE | A guide to home contents insurance | Five facts about home insurance]
Just five percent thought they didn’t have enough content of any value to warrant insurance and a further five percent thought it was too expensive.
One percent knew nothing about home insurance as they were not used to it in their home country
Our CEO and founder, Ambareen Musa, said the numbers were “extremely alarming but not surprising”.
“The majority of people we spoke to still seemed to have an ‘It will never happen to me’ attitude,” she said. “Imagine waking up one morning and literally having nothing but the clothes on your back. This is the bleak reality some victims are faced with, yet it can so easily be avoided.”
Residents are also seemingly unaware that they take full responsibility from their landlord when signing a lease – so they are 100 percent responsible for all damage if there is a fire or floor during their lease.
If their maid leaves the oven turned on and a fire breaks out or a pipe bursts and floods the place while you’re on holiday – it’s up to the tenant to pay for all repairs caused by fire damage in the building.
