Why do I have to value my possessions?

jamespb

All the advice about content insurance tells me to guess/find out the work out the price of all my stuff individually and add it up. Thats a lot of time and effort and/or prone to error.
Why does no-one offer a service to do that for you based on real experience?
I mean if loss adjuster can decide you were under-insured after an incident, why can't they value your possessions beforehand?

Another idea is to show me photos of rooms in a typical house with contents worth £40k £60 etc.

This seems obvious to me so there must be something I'm missing. Why is it not easier. I'm guessing some regulation?

Quentin

If you shop around you will find many online policies that have high "blanket" limits rather than ask you to price your exact replacement costs

dunstonh

Why does no-one offer a service to do that for you based on real experience?

Because for the last 25 years, blanket cover policies have existed that make it unnecessary.

agrinnall

I'm sure if you offer enough money a loss adjuster on their day off would come round and value your belongings, but I doubt very much if it would make financial sense to you to pay out as much as would be needed.

societys_child

Why does no-one offer a service to do that for you based on real experience?
I mean if loss adjuster can decide you were under-insured after an incident, why can't they value your possessions beforehand?

Have you thought about the cost of valuing every policy holders contents each year?

Just go with 'blanket' policies as mentioned earlier.

halys

Have you ever sat and tallied up how much it would cost to replace the contents of say, your sitting room, kitchen, etc. if God forbid there was a flood/ fire/ etc.?

I worked in insurance and blankets are often done to cover the “average” so to speak, and then if you have any items over £1000 you have to declare it.

If you think of it though… I’ll give my sitting room as an example as it was recently renovated… Just say a fire or flood broke out and the whole area had to be gutted and remodelled that is, and not exclusive to:
-Underlay
-Carpet or flooring (pricing varying depending on quality and square footage)
-Plasterboard and plaster, plus plasterer to make good
-If say, there is window or structural damage, that needs to be fixed or replaced
-Furniture- was your settee set damaged? Sofas can easily be £1000+ for a set
-TV- Prices vary obviously but can be pricey

The above could easily be £10k to fix…A new kitchen alone with white goods £10k, if not more!

The blanket is to protect you, but to also protect the company as well when they are trying to replace your possessions.

Hope it helps

forgotmyname

How will they know from a photo that your carpet was a handmade £6000 item or a £70 end of roll offcut from the bargain shop on the corner?

You maybe the sort to have one table one chair one knife/fork/spoon etc or you may have enough for a party of 100.

Hobbies a 2nd hand jigsaw from the charity shop that you return when complete and purchase another, or are you a diy person that like to make everything yourself and have thousands of £'s worth of tools?

What is easy about guessing how much your stuff or mine is worth? If you had to list everything down to your odd socks your going to be filling those forms in for a long time.