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Home Insurance in Gran Canaria for British Residents

For British residents and property owners in Gran Canaria – clear advice in English and carefully structured cover for the building, contents and liability, including eligible extraordinary natural events through the Consorcio.

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How it works

From the form to a proper comparison

Complete the form

Tell us what kind of property it is, how you use it and when you want cover to start. We do not need documents at this stage; we can review them with you afterwards.

Review the documents

Michael Dittkrist will get back to you, usually the same or next working day. Two points come first: a sensible buildings sum insured and what the community of owners already covers.

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We explain several options in English, including sums insured, excesses and exclusions. If your bank requires the policy, we also help document that the replacement cover is equivalent.

Your local contact

Home insurance advice in Gran Canaria

Michael Dittkrist

Insurance broker for C1 Broker in Gran Canaria. Michael advises clients across the island, from Maspalomas and Mogán in the south to Las Palmas and the north. For home insurance, that means reviewing the policy your bank may propose, checking whether the buildings sum makes sense for the property and explaining the Spanish policy wording in plain English before you sign.

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If your bank requires a policy: what is mandatory and what is not

Many property owners on the island first encounter Spanish home insurance when arranging a mortgage, and the bank may already have a policy ready at signing. For an ordinary Spanish mortgage, insurance on the mortgaged property forms part of the Spanish mortgage-market framework: the relevant regulation requires damage insurance for the mortgaged asset and expressly refers to fire and natural forces, not theft. Your loan agreement is always decisive, but this is the usual framework for property financed through a Spanish bank.

What is not mandatory is which insurer you use. Spain’s real-estate credit rules require the lender to accept a policy from another provider when the conditions and benefits are equivalent. The lender may not charge you for checking it, and the terms of your loan may not become worse as a result. This applies both at the start and at renewal, which matters when a bank-arranged policy becomes more expensive year after year. We compare the cover so equivalence can be documented and help you notify the bank of the change.

A second point from the same framework often causes confusion. The insurance sum is based on the valuation of the property, excluding parts that by their nature cannot be insured, especially the land. In developments in the south of Gran Canaria, the sum insured can therefore be very different from the purchase price in either direction. We work through the figure with you instead of simply copying the price from the sale contract.

What home insurance costs in Gran Canaria depends on the property

Two properties bought in the same week can cost very different amounts to insure. The difference is not simply the number of square metres. It depends on how much of the building is actually yours, how long the property is occupied during the year and what external structures or features need to be included.

Apartment in a complex in Playa del Inglés

Seventy square metres, bought twelve years ago, occupied by the owner for four months of the year and empty for the rest. Much of the building belongs to the community, so the private buildings sum insured may be relatively small. The more important points here are liability – for example, water escaping into the flat below – and the conditions that apply during long periods of unoccupancy. Many policies make theft cover conditional on a maximum period of absence. If you miss that detail, the protection may be weaker than expected for eight months of the year. If the property is instead let to changing guests, the policy needs to reflect that use as well, including the appropriate liability cover.

Country house in Teror with an outbuilding

One hundred and sixty square metres, built in the 1970s, with a storage building, cistern and retaining wall on the slope. Here the full buildings sum insured is your responsibility, and anything not expressly included in the policy may be outside the claim. This is where we most often find gaps: external structures are missing from quotations, or the buildings sum has not been reviewed since the property was bought. Older buildings may also carry a higher excess.

For a meaningful quotation we need very little: the location and size of the property, the year it was built, how you actually use it, whether there are outbuildings and, where applicable, the community of owners policy. That allows us to compare several insurers on the basis of your actual property.

Where the community of owners policy stops

The first question is not what the community policy covers, but whether there is one at all. Under Spain’s Horizontal Property Law (Ley 49/1960), the community may take out insurance for damage to the building, but the law does not make such a policy compulsory. What is compulsory is the reserve fund, which must be at least ten per cent of the last ordinary annual budget. A well-managed development can therefore still have no buildings policy.

If there is a community policy, two questions are worth asking before anything happens. First, the excess: it is stated in the policy but often only becomes noticeable when a claim is settled, and the cost ultimately falls on owners through service charges or a special levy. Second, the scope: some community policies include certain damage inside individual properties, while many do not. The meeting minutes and policy wording normally show both points. Bring them to us and we can explain which part of your own cover may be unnecessary and where a gap remains.

Buildings, contents and liability: the building blocks of a Spanish home policy

Spanish home insurance is built from different sections of cover. Which ones you need depends on the property and how you use it. In practical terms:

Buildings

What is permanently part of the property

Everything you would take with you if you moved

Liability

Damage or injury caused from your property

Water damage

Burst pipes and leak detection

Fire

Fire, lightning and smoke

Assistance

Tradespeople through the insurer’s assistance line

The exact extent of each section of cover is determined solely by the terms and conditions of the insurer concerned. This overview explains the concepts; it does not create a right to claim.

Storm, flooding and fire in Gran Canaria: who pays for what

Natural hazards can be described as a list of events that might happen, or by looking at what has already resulted in claims here. Between 2018 and 2023, the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros compensated 295 flood claims in Gran Canaria, totalling around €1.95 million. One event alone accounted for 154 cases: Tropical Storm Hermine at the end of September 2022, spread across 40 postcode areas and 14 of the island’s 21 municipalities. Mogán, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Telde and La Aldea de San Nicolás were among the areas most affected. These figures come from the updated flood-risk planning documents of the Consejo Insular de Aguas.

The other event many island residents remember falls under a different type of cover. In August 2019, two fires burned around 9,700 hectares across eight inland municipalities and roughly 8,000 people had to leave their homes; the figures come from reports by the Canary Islands emergency authorities and are estimates. Wildfire is not on the Consorcio list of extraordinary risks. It is treated as an ordinary risk and falls under the fire cover in your own policy.

For you, this means two different things. With flooding, a valid policy needs to be in force: as a general rule, Consorcio cover begins only when the policy has been issued at least seven calendar days before the event. The regulations contain exceptions, including uninterrupted replacement of a previous policy. With fire, what matters is what your own contract covers. For policies arranged through us, we can handle the notification and correspondence in English and explain which documents and photographs are needed. If you first want to understand how we work on the island, see our Gran Canaria office overview. If letting the property becomes a business activity, the appropriate protection belongs under business insurance.

The information about Spanish rules on this page is general information as at September 2026. It refers to Ley 2/1981 and Real Decreto 716/2009 (mortgages), Ley 5/2019 (real-estate credit), Ley 49/1960 (horizontal property), Ley 50/1980 (insurance contracts) and Real Decreto 300/2004 (Consorcio). It does not replace a review of your individual circumstances or legal advice. Your contract and the insurer’s policy terms are decisive.

Frequently asked questions about home insurance in Gran Canaria

When is the right time to move away from the bank-arranged policy?

The natural point to switch is the annual renewal date of your existing policy. Until then the contract remains in force, and changing earlier often provides little benefit because the premium has already been paid. Your loan agreement may state a deadline for providing the new policy to the bank, often one month before renewal. What the bank will usually want is confirmation from the new insurer showing the lender as beneficiary of the relevant compensation. We can obtain that confirmation and submit it for you.

Where can I find the valuation figure for the buildings sum insured?

If you bought with a Spanish mortgage, the figure appears in the valuation report – the tasación – commissioned by the bank before lending. The document belongs to you and also shows which part relates to the land, which is not insured. Without a mortgage there is no equivalent bank valuation, so we work from the floor area, age, construction and specification of the property and estimate the rebuilding cost. In neither case is the purchase price the right starting point.

What happens if the buildings sum insured is too low and there is a claim?

If the buildings sum insured is materially below the rebuilding value, the insurer may not pay the full amount of an otherwise covered loss. How any reduction is calculated depends on the policy wording and Spanish insurance rules. The practical point is to set the sum from rebuilding cost rather than market value and to review it when the property changes. We check the figure with you before comparing offers.

A water leak comes from a communal pipe. Do I report it, or does the community of owners?

Start by identifying whether the damaged pipe belongs to your property or to the community of owners. If it is a communal installation, the community or its insurer will normally need to be involved; if it is private, your own policy may be the relevant one. In practice, water claims often involve both policies. Send us the photos, reports and community policy if available and we can help establish where the claim should be notified.

Who decides whether a storm counts as an extraordinary event?

It is not decided by the broker or by the ordinary insurer. Whether an event falls under the Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros depends on the legal definition of an extraordinary risk and on the official assessment of the event. If it does not qualify, any cover would instead depend on the storm or weather provisions in your own policy. We can help you identify which route applies and prepare the notification.

If I have to move out temporarily after a fire, will the policy pay for accommodation?

Possibly, but only if temporary accommodation or loss-of-use cover is included and the insured event is covered by the policy. Limits, maximum periods and qualifying conditions vary between insurers. We therefore check this section of the wording when comparing policies, particularly for owners who would need somewhere else to stay during repairs.

I am buying a flat and the seller already has insurance. What happens to that policy?

The seller’s policy does not automatically become the right policy for you as the new owner. The change of ownership should be notified and the existing contract reviewed against the purchase completion date, any mortgage requirements and your own intended use of the property. Depending on the insurer and policy terms, it may be cancelled, replaced or otherwise adjusted. We normally arrange the new cover so there is no unintended gap around completion.

C1 Broker Gran Canaria – Playa del Inglés office

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