Home insurance in Spain for owners: what a policy covers and what to check before you sign

This guide explains how home insurance works in Spain for someone who owns a home here, as the rules stand in October 2026. It covers what a policy insures, how to set the sums, what a mortgage bank can require, the Consorcio surcharge that comes with every policy, cover while the home stands empty, legal cover, and claims and renewal. Insurance is one of the yearly costs set out in what it costs to own a home in Spain. The rules come from the Insurance Contract Act and the other official texts linked where they apply.

Building and contents

A home policy insures two things, and each has its own sum insured. The continente is the building: its structure and its fixed parts. The contenido is what is inside it: furniture, appliances and your belongings. The policy’s own definitions decide where items such as a fitted kitchen, the air conditioning, the pool or a solar installation fall, so read them before you set the sums.

A policy can add other cover to those two, each with its own limits, and the Act defines three of the main ones. Fire is defined in the Act as combustion with flame, able to spread, of something not meant to burn there. Theft cover pays for things taken unlawfully by third parties and the damage done in taking them. Civil liability cover pays what you owe someone else for damage you are legally responsible for, such as water from your home reaching the flat below.

In an apartment, start with the community’s own policy. The Horizontal Property Law lets a community pay for insurance on the building out of its reserve fund, as community fees in Spain explains. Ask the administrator what the community policy covers, so your own building cover fills the gaps rather than paying twice for the same walls.

On a new build, the developer must hold ten-year insurance for damage caused by defects in the foundations, beams, floors, load-bearing walls and other structural elements. It covers the structure against those defects, not a fire, a leak or a break-in, so a new home still needs its own policy from the day you take the keys.

Setting the sums insured

The sum insured is the most the insurer pays for each claim, so it is worth setting carefully.

• Too low. If the sum is below the real value when something happens, the insurer pays the same proportion of each claim. A building insured for €150,000 that would cost €200,000 to rebuild is paid at 75% of the loss. The policy can exclude that rule if both sides agree, so look for the clause.
• Too high. Insurance cannot leave you better off than before the loss, so a sum well above the value buys nothing extra, and either side can ask for the sum and the premium to come down.
• The building. The figure to aim for is the value of the building itself, not what the home would sell for, because the land cannot be insured. The mortgage rules below use the same measure.
• The contents. After a loss it is for you to show that the items existed, with the policy itself as evidence where better proof cannot reasonably be found. Keep receipts and photographs of anything of value, and list it on the policy.

What a mortgage bank requires

Spain’s mortgage-market rules require the mortgaged home to carry damage insurance covering at least fire and the other property risks, theft excepted. The sum insured must equal the bank’s valuation less the things that cannot be insured, in particular the land. You must tell the insurer about the loan, and the insurer tells the bank, warns it before the grace period runs out if the premium goes unpaid, and passes on any claim.

The 2019 mortgage law lets the bank make that insurance, and a policy guaranteeing the repayment of the loan, a condition of the mortgage. It must then accept a policy from another insurer that offers equivalent conditions and cover, both when the loan is signed and at every renewal. It cannot charge for checking the alternative, and accepting it cannot worsen the terms of the loan. Banks often take a little off the rate for taking their own products, and the mortgage guide for non-residents shows how to weigh that discount against the cost.

The Consorcio surcharge on every policy

Every home policy in Spain includes a surcharge for the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros, the public body that pays for damage from extraordinary events. Its cover comes automatically with the policy, and it pays out without any official declaration of a disaster, even where a single home is affected.

• What it covers. Extraordinary floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, atypical cyclonic storms including tornadoes and winds with gusts above 120 km/h, and falling meteorites. Also terrorism, rebellion and riot, and the actions of the armed forces and security forces in peacetime. Its flood cover includes the sea battering the coast, even where nothing is flooded, which matters on a frontline home.
• What it leaves out. Rain falling directly on the home or collected by its roof, terraces, drains or patios. Wind without gusts above 120 km/h, hail, snow, leaks, seepage and damp, and landslips unless an extraordinary flood caused them at the same time. Those fall to the ordinary policy, where it covers them.
• The conditions. The premium must be paid, and the surcharge must appear on the receipt. On a new policy there is a seven-day wait before natural events are covered, which does not apply where the new policy replaces an old one with no gap between them.
• The excess. The Consorcio applies no excess on damage to homes or to communities of owners of homes. It pays on the basis of the policy’s own sums insured and clauses, so a home underinsured with its insurer is underinsured with the Consorcio too.
• Claiming. By phone on 900 222 665, a line that also answers in English, or on the Consorcio’s website, ideally within seven days.

The size of the surcharge follows a tariff set by the insurance regulator, the Dirección General de Seguros y Fondos de Pensiones, in a resolution of 28 March 2018 amended on 30 December 2025. A second surcharge of 0.15% of the premium, collected with it, funds the winding-up of failed insurers. On top of both sits the insurance premium tax, charged at 8% of the premium.

A home that stands empty

If you will spend part of the year elsewhere, the policy has to fit that. Three rules in the Insurance Contract Act decide how.

• What you declare at the start. Before the policy is signed you must answer the insurer’s questionnaire with everything you know that bears on the risk. If it asks whether the home is a main or a second home, or how long it stands empty, answer exactly.
• What changes later. During the policy you must tell the insurer, as soon as you can, of any change to what you declared that makes the risk worse. If you do not and something happens, the payment is cut in proportion to the premium you should have paid, and it is refused altogether where the owner acted in bad faith. Starting to let the home is the kind of change to report, where the questionnaire asked how it is used.
• What limits your cover. Clauses that limit your rights must be highlighted in the policy and accepted by you in writing. A condition on a home left empty should be one of those. That covers the locks or an alarm the insurer requires, or a cut in cover after a set number of days, and you should have signed it.

Before you sign, ask the insurer directly what the policy requires of a home left empty and for how long. Cover for illegal occupation, and what owners actually do about a home they leave, are set out in the guide to squatters in Spain.

Legal cover

Legal expenses cover, the defensa jurídica, pays the costs of court or administrative proceedings and legal help in and out of court, within the limits of the policy. It never pays fines. The Act requires it to be a separate contract, or a separate chapter of the policy with its own premium, so it is easy to see whether you have it. It also gives you the right to choose your own lawyer. On a home you are often away from, it is worth checking that chapter is there and what its limit is.

Claims and renewal

• Reporting a claim. Tell the insurer within seven days of finding out, unless the policy allows longer, and give it the information it asks for.
• Being paid. The insurer must pay at least the minimum it knows it owes within forty days of receiving the claim, and can repair or replace instead of paying where you agree.
• A disagreement on the amount. Each side names a loss adjuster, and where the two disagree they name a third.
• Renewal. A policy runs for the period it states and can renew for up to a year at a time. To stop it renewing you must give written notice at least a month before the period ends, and the insurer must tell you of any change to the policy at least two months ahead.

What to check before you sign

• The sums insured for the building, at its value without the land, and for the contents, with a list of anything valuable.
• In an apartment, what the community’s policy already covers.
• The definitions of building and contents, and where the pool, the kitchen and any solar panels fall.
• The highlighted clauses, especially any condition on a home left empty and the excess on each cover.
• The civil liability limit.
• The legal cover chapter, its premium and its limit.
• With a mortgage, that the bank has been notified and the cover meets its conditions.
• The Consorcio surcharge on the receipt.

How I handle it

My part is to make sure the right cover is in place on the day you complete. Before the deed I check whether the community insures the building and what its policy covers, and on a new build I confirm the ten-year structural insurance is in the developer’s paperwork.

Then I go through the policy you are offered with you: the sums against the value of the building and the contents, the highlighted clauses on a home left empty, the liability limit and the legal cover chapter. With a mortgage I make sure the bank has what it needs, and that an equivalent policy you found yourself is accepted on the terms the law gives you. To talk through the costs of owning a home you are considering, book a call. Buying with me sets out how I work.

General guidance, not insurance or legal advice. The rules described are those of the Insurance Contract Act, the mortgage-market rules, the 2019 mortgage law and the Consorcio’s published conditions, checked on 24 October 2026. Each policy’s own conditions decide what it pays, so read them before you sign.

Common questions