Home Insurance Proof of Purchase

amillionlittlepieces

Hi All,

I'm setting up home contents insurance and being as diligent as I am, I'm trying to find all receipts and proof of purchase for my larger items bikes etc.

The one that escapes me is my laptop proof of purchase. The current laptop I have is a MacBook and it was the result of an insurance claim 5 years ago. Now can the old insurance company provide me with a 'Proof of Purchase'?

Any help much appreciated

InsideInsurance

Generally for insurance you need proof of ownership rather than purchase

The old insurer may be able to confirm what they provided under the policy, as may the vendor who provided it. Alternatively companies generally accept other things like photos of the item in situ, the packaging materials/ manuals etc. Exactly what they require varies by insurer, claims circumstances and general fraud scorecard results.

adindas

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Generally for insurance you need proof of ownership rather than purchase

The old insurer may be able to confirm what they provided under the policy, as may the vendor who provided it. Alternatively companies generally accept other things like photos of the item in situ, the packaging materials/ manuals etc. Exactly what they require varies by insurer, claims circumstances and general fraud scorecard results.

I have few quite high quality, good brand second items such as -hand Laptops, PC, TV, computer networking, house appliances, sofas, and furniture’s, etc. that I got it through winning the bid in the auctions. I won the items mostly with a very good price; this might be due to luck factor but also because I have invested times in research and bidding the items. So the issue here is that, the actual price of the items is much higher in the real market or from the shops.

Hopefully not, but just in case I will have to claim from home insurance, which price do I need to put ? Is it the price when I won the item auction (e.g. the winning price)?
If so, my worry is that, I will not be able to find or get the same items (in tem of quality, brand) with the price when I originally bought it?

If the insures is insisting to put the original price when I won the item form the auction, is it possible to ask them, instead of giving item, we ask them to find the same items with the same specifications.

How do I determine the price of individual item ??
Thank you for sharing your opinion.

InsideInsurance

Assuming you are looking at new for old policies, which the majority are these days, then you need to insure them for the cost of going into the shops tomorrow to buy the same spec items at high street prices.

The fact you have bought them secondhand, been given them as gifts, found them in a skip etc is irrelevant as long as you've correctly declared their values when insuring them (or the sum of their values if they are under the individual item limit).

I know of someone who was exceptionally good at acquiring top brands at a tiny fraction of their value but unfortunately they were insuring them at the prices they paid for them and had problems when a claim occurred. Now in theory they were happy to get £100 for a £2,000 Cartier watch because thats all they'd paid for it but it was under insurance and their £10,000 of contents insurance really should have been over £100,000 which is a very different risk profile for the insurer and so they attempted to repudiate the claim

adindas

Thnaks for the answer.
But when you want to claim do not they ask proof of purchase ??
Or here proof is irrelevant as long as you declare he item as your valuable when purchase the insurance ??

Thanks again

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Assuming you are looking at new for old policies, which the majority are these days, then you need to insure them for the cost of going into the shops tomorrow to buy the same spec items at high street prices.

The fact you have bought them secondhand, been given them as gifts, found them in a skip etc is irrelevant as long as you've correctly declared their values when insuring them (or the sum of their values if they are under the individual item limit).

I know of someone who was exceptionally good at acquiring top brands at a tiny fraction of their value but unfortunately they were insuring them at the prices they paid for them and had problems when a claim occurred. Now in theory they were happy to get £100 for a £2,000 Cartier watch because thats all they'd paid for it but it was under insurance and their £10,000 of contents insurance really should have been over £100,000 which is a very different risk profile for the insurer and so they attempted to repudiate the claim

FutureGirl

It depends what the claim is for, and what items are being claimed for as to whether they will ask for proof of purchase / ownership.

If claiming for a damaged sofa, they won't generally ask for proof of ownership. If claiming for a stolen laptop you bought via an auction site, you may be asked to provide proof of ownership, and you could easily do this by printing off the page off the auction site saying you won the bid / bought it.

InsideInsurance

adindas wrote: »

Thnaks for the answer.
But when you want to claim do not they ask proof of purchase ??
Or here proof is irrelevant as long as you declare he item as your valuable when purchase the insurance ??

No, its proof of ownership rather than purchase, otherwise you could never get insurance for gifts or things you inherit etc. Now one of the easiest proof of ownership is a receipt but its not the only one.

What is needed and when depends on the circumstances of the claim, your policy, your insurer, your fraud scorecard etc.

So a damaged sofa is fine as they can see the damaged sofa and so receipts etc

Now if your talking about a stolen item then you start getting more complex, whats been stolen? A bottom of the range couple of year old laptop or a top of the range laptop with all the optional extras? Do you claim to have had 3 almost new rolexs stolen and yet everything else in your home is worse less than one watch? Or is it one Omega watch taken out of a set of a dozen watches you own which is part of a large collection of jewellery? Do you have receipts for lots of things but just one or two cheaper/ older items you dont or do you have a £8,000 TV you bought last week but dont have the receipt any more?

adindas

Thank to both of you.
I do not bother to claim to the for small damage.
Let say there is a fire and I loose all of the items. If I use the auction bid winning as the proof of possession could I claim the value more than what the stated wining price if the actual cost of acquiring the same items are much more than the initila coat stated on the winning bid ??

Thanks again

FutureGirl wrote: »

It depends what the claim is for, and what items are being claimed for as to whether they will ask for proof of purchase / ownership.

If claiming for a damaged sofa, they won't generally ask for proof of ownership. If claiming for a stolen laptop you bought via an auction site, you may be asked to provide proof of ownership, and you could easily do this by printing off the page off the auction site saying you won the bid / bought it.

InsideInsurance wrote: »

No, its proof of ownership rather than purchase, otherwise you could never get insurance for gifts or things you inherit etc. Now one of the easiest proof of ownership is a receipt but its not the only one.

What is needed and when depends on the circumstances of the claim, your policy, your insurer, your fraud scorecard etc.

So a damaged sofa is fine as they can see the damaged sofa and so receipts etc

Now if your talking about a stolen item then you start getting more complex, whats been stolen? A bottom of the range couple of year old laptop or a top of the range laptop with all the optional extras? Do you claim to have had 3 almost new rolexs stolen and yet everything else in your home is worse less than one watch? Or is it one Omega watch taken out of a set of a dozen watches you own which is part of a large collection of jewellery? Do you have receipts for lots of things but just one or two cheaper/ older items you dont or do you have a £8,000 TV you bought last week but dont have the receipt any more?

InsideInsurance

adindas wrote: »

Let say there is a fire and I loose all of the items. If I use the auction bid winning as the proof of possession could I claim the value more than what the stated wining price if the actual cost of acquiring the same items are much more than the initila coat stated on the winning bid ??

You would get the current market value of the item based on either the same item or an item of equivalent spec if the original is no longer made. If there is simply no equivalent you get the last known market value of such an item.

Only two exceptions really exist:

1) collectibles/ antiques may you find you get the secondhand value is higher than the modern equiv so an ultra rare vintage Rolex Submariner is more expensive than a brand new Rolex Submariner and so you'd get the higher value

2) clothes are generally excluded from new for old and so depreciation is deducted from their new retail price based on their current age

If you have lost "everything" then the insurers will ensure that your total sum insured was sufficient to cover everything based on the new values. A lot of people get unstuck here as they only add up the values of their TVs, Sofa etc and forget that actually clothes, cutlery, spirits, rugs, routers actually all fairly quickly add up or they state their Omega Seamaster is £1,500 because thats what they paid but since which the watch has gone up to £3,400 so they are instantly underinsured by £1,900

HHarry

When we were burgaled 3 ipads were stolen, 2 of which had been bought second hand from a forum.

I supplied print outs of the forum posts, and a copy of my bank statements showing the money transfer, which was all accepted OK.

For those sorts of things the price paid isn't important, they'll supply like for like.