Contents insurance covers your belongings in the event of damage or loss. This includes items such as furniture and electrical goods and will usually include items you take outside of the home such as a camera, mobile or bag.
To help you decide if you need contents insurance and to understand what is and isn't covered, follow this link.
As with all forms of insurance there are different levels of cover but policies usually cover against fire and theft, you can add the option to insure against accidental damage as well. Many individual objects such as expensive technological equipment or ornaments may need to be individually specified to cover them. Or alternatively the policy may offer you a “new for old” policy where they will replace old belongings with new ones. Additionally your cover may change if you spend long periods of time away from your property or let it out.
It is important to carefully consider the level of protection you need, be wary of underestimating the contents of your home. What may not seem that valuable to you will be worth stealing for a burglar. Consider how much it would cost to go out and replace everything in your home.
More information on Contens Insurance can be found at CitizensAdvice.
A guide to finding the right contents insurance policy can be found at Money Super Market.
To help you determine how much home insurance you need follow this link.
When applying for contents insurance a very common mistake is to miss out important items from you list, the best way to avoid underestimating the value of your belongings is to make a “room by room checklist”. Under each room (don’t forget landings, halls and lofts) make a list of what is typically kept in the room, and then check this against what you actually keep in each room (don’t forget to look in every drawer and box).
This process should make sure that you have not missed anything off your list. The next step is to write down a rough estimate of how much it would cost to replace each item, using the Internet to research the current cost of items can be a useful way of doing this. Adding up all of these prices should give you a rough estimation of how much you need to contents insurance to cover.
Alternatively Confused.com provides an online contents calculator..
Damage to the building itself is not covered by contents insurance. Follow this link to the buildings insurance page on MyAdviceGateway. Be aware that you can often get a discount on your insurance if you get your buildings and contents insurance as a combined deal.
There are many ways you can lower the cost of contents insurance, such as fitting burglar alarms, lockable windows and agreed excesses that allow you to pay the first part of a claim making the policy cheaper overall. Always remember to shop around based on the policy as well as the price.
However, make sure you don't fall into the underinsurance trap. The consequeces of being underinsured are explained at this link.
More information and advice on Home Insurance, including details on the differing insurance types, specialist policies and what is and isn’t covered, can be found at the following links
Personal Items Insurance when Travelling Abroad
To protect your belongings when travelling abroad you may want to consider separate travel insurance
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