Can you get tenants' contents insurance with under £5000 cover?

Katarazzi

My contents' total value is around £1000-£1500 so I don't need cover for £5000. I can't find tenants' contents insurance under this though. I am hoping I'll need to pay less for lower cover.

jonesMUFCforever

I don't think you will.
Have you factored in some items that you may be responsible for which are not yours such as carpets? For example if you ruin your living room carpet I don't think your landlord would want to replace it for free.

paddyandstumpy

How much does £5k cover cost? I can't imagine it would be more than insurer minimum premiums, if so there is no benefit in seeking cheaper cover, the price would still be minimum premium. 

Grumpy_chap

While the OP know what they do or don't have, taking the £5k cover as minimum is probably prudent.  Certainly better to be over- rather than under-insured.  I assume the OP is in furnished accommodation, maybe similar to student accommodation, but it really is not hard to accrue £1,500-worth of "stuff".  Tablet PC, phone, few clothes, bed linen, towels.  It is not uncommon for a phone alone to be £500.  Even a budget phone is still £150, and that is 10% of everything the OP claims as posessions.

Sandtree

Katarazzi said:

My contents' total value is around £1000-£1500 so I don't need cover for £5000. I can't find tenants' contents insurance under this though. I am hoping I'll need to pay less for lower cover.

Are you the tenant or landlord? £5k will not only cover contents but fixtures and fittings too like damage to the kitchen 

MalMonroe

There was a really interesting and very comprehensive article about this on here last month. 

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/renters-contents-insurance/#stepone

Are you sure that £1000 to £1500 will be enough to cover everything?  I don't think it will. Some insurers won't even insure for such low amounts.

I live in a two bed council flat and the council operates its own insurance scheme. Is yours council or private renting? If council the rates are really low. For £4000 cover tenants pay 85 pence per week. I pay 98 pence per week and have £6000 cover. 

Please don't under-insure. We had a kitchen fire ten years ago and the fire service had to attend. They not only messed up the kitchen (not complaining at all as we were very grateful!) but also walked all over the carpets everywhere to ensure all the windows were flung open and that there was no other damage. So not only did we have to claim for kitchen equipment but also decoration of walls and doors in there and new kitchen flooring. Plus new carpets in the lounge and one bedroom because whatever came off their boots did not scrub off the carpets in those rooms. The total claim came to much more than £1500. It wasn't just fire damage, it was water damage too as they had used their hoses liberally.

Contents insurance isn't a waste of money, it really is a necessity. We wouldn't have been able to afford to replace our damaged items without it. 

TELLIT01

Even if available, I would expect the reduction in premium to minimal.  Far better to be slightly over insured than to be under insured.

Aretnap

Katarazzi said:

My contents' total value is around £1000-£1500 so I don't need cover for £5000. I can't find tenants' contents insurance under this though. I am hoping I'll need to pay less for lower cover.

Cutting the amount of cover is subject the law of diminishing returns. There's a price below which contents insurance will not go, regardless of how little cover you want (which reflects the costs of setting up the policy, and a share of the insurer's general overheads), and reducing the potential payout just brings your premium closer to this theoretical minimum.

At £5000 you are probably already close to the minimum premium, so if you could find an insurer willing to offer a lower amount of cover, there's no guarantee that the premium would be noticeably lower.

As above, most people tend to underestimate the value of their contents, so if the difference in price is minimal it is better to err on the side of caution and have too much cover rather than risk having too little. 

Katarazzi

jonesMUFCforever said:

I don't think you will.
Have you factored in some items that you may be responsible for which are not yours such as carpets? For example if you ruin your living room carpet I don't think your landlord would want to replace it for free.

I've checked and they've insured their furniture, fixtures and fittings. Does that mean that if I accidentally damage one of these that they can still charge me?

dunstonh

 I can't find tenants' contents insurance under this though.

It's the same as homeowners contents insurance.    Its only landlords that need a different type of policy to protect their contents on a let property.

Most insurers will have a minimum premium or level of cover.  A bedroom rated policy may well be the cheapest option.

Sandtree

Katarazzi said:
I've checked and they've insured their furniture, fixtures and fittings. Does that mean that if I accidentally damage one of these that they can still charge me?

Yes they can still charge you; else if they claim off their insurance then their insurers can charge you.

To claim off the insurance and off of you would be undue enrichment.

Most landlords will attempt to get the money off the tenant but if the tenant does a runner and basic tracing fails then they revert to landlords insurance - seen a surprising number of cases where tenants turned the property into a minifarm cutting holes for ventilation and ruining flooring with water etc.