home insurance "coverage"

wiganshale

Has anyone come across a site that compares what is covered both in terms of before buying and after making a claim.
In terms of building insurance, the purchaser is responsible for deciding the insured value i.e. the cost of re-building.
I have three problems:
first, I don't know how much the cost to re-build would be ( the only on-line site, that I found that offered to calculate this, gave a ridiculously low value).
second, One article stated that I would be responsible for neighbouring property, if mine set theirs on fire etc., so how do I calculate that in?
third, most policies seem to exclude Acts of God, Civil Disorder, Floods, explosion, aeroplanes crashing into my house and almost anything that might conceivably require a re-build.

One has to consider that in the last case, you'd probably not survive it, nor would the documentation to prove that you had insurance. (can't make a claim without it)

In terms of contents, estimating the cost to be insured is not too difficult.
The problem seems to be when making a claim. There's no way that any sane person could itemise the contents of a burned out bedroom and then to provide receipts for the missing items, as I was asked to (by the Pru) many moons ago.
Look around the room that your in. Could you do, as I was asked?
It should be possible for an insurance company to be able to say that based on experience and the evidence of an assessor (you should hire your own, as the insurance company's assessor may be ever so slightly, larcenously, biased), the house or room contained £xxx's worth of gear.

Basically, If I'm putting a bet on a horse, I want to know the odds offered, the horse's chances and the likelihood of the bookie paying up. #

Are there any Form Guides out there?

FlameCloud

1. It costs no where near the houses value to rebuild it. Mainly becuase of the value of the land. Roughly half it and you wont be far off. Bear in mind though this often had a knock on effect to other areas of the policy, in terms of % limits. If you are that concerned, get a policy with no limits.

2. Its liabilty. You are either covered in % terms again or a straight 2 million ish. Unless you live next to the Queen you should be ok. And even then only if was proved categorically that you couldnt do anything to prevent the damage from occuring.

3. Acts of God dont exist. Civil disorder damage is paid for by the government, Floods, Explosions and Impacts should be covered on any decent policy. I have never worked with one that doesnt include those three as basic perils.

4. Of course you can. The data is held on the insurances computers. Get your surname, dob and address, and you are good to go.

5. You shouldnt need receipts for everything. Only high value items you should have receipts for. If you've had something like a fire, that would be taken into account, providing the items claimed for fit into your lifestyle. If we are that concerned, we will get our own forensics in. Again, if it bothers you that much, spend 5 minutes taking digi pictures of all items in the house.

6. I really wouldnt bother. They take a large fee, the insurance company will deliberatly slow down the claim and the settlement probably wont be any different, certainly no where near enough to justify the fee.

Hope it helps!

kingkano

With regards rebuild, to give an example, my £280k house we're buying has a rebuild cost of 131k. Its basically based on square footage I believe. Funnily enough 2 insurance sites came up with pretty close to the same figure in their offer of coverage. If you don't trust it find one that offers a blanket coverage (ie halifax is unlimited, some others offer blanket 500k or 400k coverage for rebuilding).

As regards claiming they'll always fight their corner. None will be 'easy'. Myabe avoid ones with indian call centres?? (NU and affiliates)