quick question re contents insurance

lisyloo

If I add on specific items then are they in addition to the specified contents limit or are they included within it.
I had always assumed that because I was paying extra that they were in addition.

However yesterday I went onto confused.com.
I entered £75K contents and added £10K items.
They automatically reduced the over cover to £65K meaning the £10K was included and not additional.

This isn't particularly clear to me.
Anyone know the general rule?

I also have a second question.
If I value my contents then should I value everything at it's replacement value.
So if my carpet needed replacing would I get new carpet or would they say - it's 6 years old, so we'll pay 50%.

I am just valuing my contents and it's a LOT more than I thought (which I siuspect a lot of people would find also).

dacouch

Its a good question Lisyloo

The simple answer is that it varies from Insurer to Insurer. As you rightly pointed out you are paying extra to specify the items so they should be in addition. This is the way some Insurers look at it and some don't.

If you ring and check with any Insurers it would be sensible to either speak to a superviser and / or take a note of the persons name and date etc. I say this as call centre staff normally do not understand this question so are likely to tell you the wrong answer.

With regards to valuing your contents, you should (Assuming you have a new for old policy) value everything at the current "New" price apart from clothing and linen where they will normally take into account wear and tear.

Lisyloo do yourself a favour and get cover with Hiscox, it might cost you a bit extra but is so so much better and could actually save you money if you ever ,make a claim

It sounds to me like you are on the verge of being to unusual for the current comparison sites.

lisyloo

Yes I have been looking at Hiscox.
They have many advantages like no single item limit and garden cover and I know the cover is good.
I was surprised it wasn't too expensive actually.

dacouch

They havw many advantages is an understatement, have a good read of the summary of cover and the policy. The sort of policy they offer is not comparable with normal insurance, they are different products.

I love selling these types of policies, I actually hope my clients with these have minor claims as I know they will be amazed, the service you get is exactly how you would imagine your claim would be handled in a perfect world.

lisyloo

I have just been round my house and valued my contents room by room.
I didn't check prices for each individual item becaue this isn't practical, but I did list out what I have in each room and put a guesstimate by it and then got my OH to review it.

I just want to warn people about being under-insured because my contents were worth approximate DOUBLE when I did the breakdown than when I'd previously guessed the total.

I'm therefore glad I did this exercise and I'm now properly insured.
Furthermore if there are any queries in future about the amounts, then I can whip out my spreadsheet and show that a breakdown and valuation (of sorts) was done.

Kittian_the_Blue

Underestimating the value of household contents is the most common mistake people make - I always go for a value in excess of what I think I've got - allows for purchases/surprises.
As Dacouch says if you have a reasonably high sum insured then the suggestion of Hiscox is a good one. I have always believed that cheap insurance is a false economy.

dacouch

One of the advantages of the higher Hiscox and similar Insurers policies are that they do not apply the under insurance clause providing you have not deliberately miss lead them / grossly under insured

lisyloo

I've never deliberately mislead and I don't think most ordinary folk do, but my point was really that I had grossly undervalued unintentionally.

dacouch

One of the benefits of the High Net Policies is they do not bother with the Under Insurance, they do this as their customers tend to under estimate the value of the contents even more than the average person.

Get yourself a decent High Net policy, you will be amazed at the cover it provides. I actually sort of hope my customers have a minor claim on these types of policies as I know they will be blown away by the service.

lisyloo

I'm going with Hiscox.
It's not that much more expensive, but I need to pay for my alarm to be serviced.
It's a little annoying because we test it regularly, but hey ho.

sarah_elton

My mum is a senior underwriter at Hiscox (in household until recently in fact) so will be chuffed to hear about these comments. She has her policy with them of course, and had to claim herself - she's never known a claims process like it (after 30 years in the industry). Paid out very fast with hardly any questions!

OH and I don't have enough contents yet to justify their policy but we'll switch as soon as we do. OH is into nature photography so has expensive cameras and lenses that need all risks cover. We've got them fully covered with our insurer, but I'd trust Hiscox to have new kit in his hands in no time if something happened to it.

dacouch - a minor claim is fine, but no more than a few in a year or they'll be referred to whoever's doing my mum's job now for a case review and probably a premium load lol

Also just wanted to reiterate lisyloo's point - I value my contents every couple of years to make sure we're adequately insured. And people should remember to value items at their cost to replace brand new. My mum's drilled all this into me from a young age. :rolleyes: