Having worked in insurance in a past life, I am well aware of how important it is to have a good home insurance in place, especially if your property in Portugal is used as a second home and may be empty for long periods of time, so insuring your home in Estremoz is a priority.

So, shortly after completing on our home in Estremoz, we decided to get it insured against fire, water damage, break-ins etc.

Most banks nowadays offer insurance as part of their service and although I wouldn’t normally insure via a bank (after all, it is not their field of expertise), we thought we would at least get a quote as a basis to start from.

It seems that the square metres of land plus square metres of build determine the cost of the insurance policy here, and the quote I was given seemed very reasonable to me—especially compared to what I was used to paying in Spain. However, the bank manager thought otherwise, shaking his head and saying: “It’s expensive, very expensive…”

Options for insuring your home

So we decided to shop around and try an insurance broker found on Google Maps with an office just around the corner. Quite an old-fashioned office, it took 45 minutes of answering questions about the structure and contents, proving ownership, finding out that the owner was born next door 😊, and suffering a few computer glitches…but we walked out with an insurance policy that was half the price of the bank’s and with a good, solid company: Tranquilidade (part of the Generali group).

Happy with that, and also with the knowledge that if we should need to claim against the policy in the future, we have a face-to-face broker, who would handle the matter on our behalf with the insurance company.

José Pires Cóias – Mediadores Profissionais de Seguros
Rua Vasco de Gama 9
Estremoz
Tel: +351 268 332 081