confused about home contents cover

sciencegeek

Hi,
im hoping someone who understands insurance can help me out with my question.
I have just had my home and contents insurance quote through and i was examing the cover, i noticed that the contents cover states up to £50,000. However directly below this it also states "total unspecified valubles within contents sum insured £15,000" (we dont have any specified items cover).

So my question is... do i have 50,000 or 15,000 of cover. I am concerned because £15,000 is not a lot for an entire furnished house.


Thanks for any advice.

stooby

what they'e saying is your total contents limit is £50k and within that there is a limit for "unspecified valuables" of £15k. i.e you can have no moe than £15k worth of what your policy defines as valuables, usually, fur coats, pictures, curios, stamp collections, jewellery, works of art etc. "Valuables" wouldnt normally be tv, sofa, clothes etc.
You'll probably find that there is a further Single Article Limit of anything between £1500 and £2500 for any item/set of "valuables".

sciencegeek

Thanks,

that seems like a likely answer. I wonder who decides what is a 'valuble' and if its possible to see a typical list somewhere. Do you think something like a computer would be a valuble because i would argue that these days its really a regular houshold item?

stooby

if you're ever feeling a bit bored have a read of of your policy and specifically look at the "Definitions" page. It defines what they class as a "Valuable" - most insurers have much the same list but there are slight variations. I'd be amost certain your insurer doesnt class a PC as a valuable.

olly300

As stated it really does depend on the policy wording.

Desktop PC's under a specific amount are not classed as valuables. The amount depends on the policy some policies define any single item costing over £1,500 as a valuable so a PC costing £800 is not a valuable but one costing £2,000 is for this particular policy.

However some policies using the wording "computer equipment" so if your PC, printer, speakers, etc making up one system add up to being over the amount for valuables you have to declare it.

Computer equipment is annoying as it depreciates in value very quickly so while one year it could be classed as a valuable in 2 years it isn't.

Likewise "collections" of things like CDs, LPs, stamps,figurines can be valuables if the total amount exceeds the valuable limit. (However you have to know and record what is in your collection. )

Also most normal policies don't cover electronic data i.e. digital photos, MP3s, letters even those items are valuables.