Contents insurance how does it work ?

venomx

Having mental health problems I get paranoid about leaving the house sometimes 

I do have contents insurance as per the landlords requirements.

lets say a £300 item goes missing . Would the insurer just replace it after you pay the excess ? Surely they would be out of pocket though as the cost of the claim could be higher than the excess and premium 

johnny_c-l

Yes, that's how it works.

HHarry

They’ll be out of pocket for your claim, but in profit from everyone who doesn’t claim.  Hopefully for them, they’ll be in profit overall.

Our home insurance is about £300 a year, when we got burgled the insurance company paid out just under £10k.

venomx

Thanks
does it cover out of home loss such as bikes and laptops or does that depend on the insurers?

eddddy

venomx said:

lets say a £300 item goes missing . Would the insurer just replace it after you pay the excess ? Surely they would be out of pocket though as the cost of the claim could be higher than the excess and premium 

Insurance is about spreading out risk. Here's a simplified example...

• Say, 200 people all have contents insurance policies, and each pay £50 per year for their policy. That means the insurance company gets 200 x 50 = £10,000 per year

• In a particular year, one of those 200 people has a fire or a flood or a burglary and loses £5,000 worth of stuff. So the insurance company pay them £5,000

• The insurance company has collected £10,000 in premiums, but only paid out £5,000 in claims. So they have made a £5,000 profit.

Chloe901

venomx said:

Thanks
does it cover out of home loss such as bikes and laptops or does that depend on the insurers?

That will depend on your insurance.

venomx

Ok thanks I understand 

if you buy a new item such as tv, , pc ,bike etc do you have to inform them ?

[Deleted User]

venomx said:

Thanks
does it cover out of home loss such as bikes and laptops or does that depend on the insurers?

It depends on your policy but usually cover for those sorts of items away from home is something you need to add on to the insurer’s standard policy. 

I’m not sure why your landlord has made you get contents insurance. Certainly it’s a good idea to get contents insurance for your contents but you shouldn’t have to ensure his contents as well. 

davidmcn

Lover_of_Lycra said:

I’m not sure why your landlord has made you get contents insurance. Certainly it’s a good idea to get contents insurance for your contents but you shouldn’t have to ensure his contents as well. 

More to the point, you can't insure the landlord's property - your policy is only going to cover your property.

macman

The LL cannot insist that your insure your own contents. It's obviously advised that you do, but to write it into your tenancy agreement is absurd, and unenforceable.

MovingForwards

Have a read through your policy and see what has been declared as sometimes bikes etc have to be declared to be covered, especially if you have an expensive one and not a cheap one.

Most insurance companies have a maximum per item value written in to the policy, anything over that has to be declared else it's not covered.

If you take an item out and lose it / it's stolen, it may not be covered under the policy unless disclosed.

If you accidentally drop / break something, if you haven't got accidental damage, you are not covered.

Read through your policy and read through a lot of the threads on here so you have a better idea as to what insurance is for, what it can cover and what's expected of you.