Contents insurance - wedding dress?

mkemushroom

Hi all.

I recently got married and now have my beautiful wedding dress hanging up at home ready to be dry-cleaned and boxed up.

My question is - now that our wedding insurance has ended should I add the dress to our contents insurance? It cost more than the £1500 threshold for individual items and it is a designer item. However it is now used and obviously mostly sentimental. If something happens to it I wouldn't replace it although I'm sure some money back would help soften the blow somewhat. Or would I end up just paying the cost of the dress again anyway in insurance premiums over the years?

Any thoughts?

TSx

Check your policy, a lot of policies will deduct wear and tear from clothing and essentially pay you the second hand price, so whatever you could get for it on ebay.

InsideInsurance

If it is being kept in the home then it needs to be factored into your total sum insured and on budget policies would need to be declared due to its value.

As TSx says, almost all Home policies exclude clothing from the new for old cover and so they will depreciate the value. Depending on exactly what the item is will vary the percentages but most insurers will do a simple linear depreciation over a number of years so something like over 1 year old take off 20%, over 2 years old 40%, over 3 years old 60% and 4 or more years old take off 80%

On the basis depreciation is factored in it is most likely that only a cash settlement is offered unless the item is written off in the first year in which case normal rules apply such that the insurer is free to chose if to repair, replace or refund and if you chose cash/refund against the insurers choice they can deduct their preferred supplier discount from the cash settlement

trukdiver

TSx wrote: »

Check your policy, a lot of policies will deduct wear and tear from clothing and essentially pay you the second hand price, so whatever you could get for it on ebay.

Have a look at the completed items to see what they actually sold for, rather than what people are asking. I did a photoshoot with a bride who decided that the second hand value of her dress was less than the cost of cleaning. She did get to wear it three times though.

How would depreciation etc apply to something like this though? They have a very short "useful life" so annual depreciation wouldn't work.

InsideInsurance

trukdiver wrote: »

How would depreciation etc apply to something like this though? They have a very short "useful life" so annual depreciation wouldn't work.

It probably is too rare a claimed for object for it to have a specific rule set out for it and so probably follows the normal Clothes rules.

You would need to read the actual term on the clothing section to see if it says that it is simply indemnity based in which case a search on eBay for completed listings of used dresses is as good as any mechanism or if it says they will depreciate it in which case it will probably follow the clothes method.

You'd always have the complaints/ FOS route to go down if you felt their mechanism was unfair and undervalued the items when in comparison to actual secondhand sale prices. I havent looked at secondhand dress prices - the wife's went down in a "trash the dress" photoshoot after the wedding - but can certainly see that some high end branded items do retain their values much better than say M&S clothes.

trukdiver

InsideInsurance wrote: »

It probably is too rare a claimed for object for it to have a specific rule set out for it and so probably follows the normal Clothes rules.

You would need to read the actual term on the clothing section to see if it says that it is simply indemnity based in which case a search on eBay for completed listings of used dresses is as good as any mechanism or if it says they will depreciate it in which case it will probably follow the clothes method.

You'd always have the complaints/ FOS route to go down if you felt their mechanism was unfair and undervalued the items when in comparison to actual secondhand sale prices. I havent looked at secondhand dress prices - the wife's went down in a "trash the dress" photoshoot after the wedding - but can certainly see that some high end branded items do retain their values much better than say M&S clothes.

I think I'd be a bit suspicious of a claim for a wedding dress... I was going to do a "trash the dress" shoot with a girl who'd paid £1750 for her dress. It didn't happen because she got pregnant but she really didn't care what happened to the dress!

InsideInsurance

trukdiver wrote: »

I think I'd be a bit suspicious of a claim for a wedding dress

A little harsh, but it would depend on the circumstances. House fire and all your possessions lost including your wedding dress fine. Accidentally lost it on the way back from the dry cleaners then it sounds suspicious.

mkemushroom

Thank you to those of you who don't seem to think I'm out to make a false claim. More than a little bit insulted by the rest of you.

sithemadmonkey

Only one person mentioned false claims, and that wasn't aimed at you specifically - they were just mentioning the trend of photoshoots of the bride trashing the dress after the wedding, and whether people would be tempted to claim for it afterwards.

When it comes to depreciation, I think you could reasonably argue that the normal rules don't apply, as it's likely to only have been worn once (so 'wear and tear' doesn't apply as much). However, if it's designer then age would impact on the value, as it wouldn't be that 'season'.