Home insurance questions

FataVerde

FTB and never had any home insurance (or car for that matter) as I always rented so I’d appreciate advice on the following:

1.     Cost of rebuild: Should I use the cost in my Hombuyer’s report (lower) or that automatically suggested by the comparison site (higher by about 60,000)?

2.     Contents insurance: do you estimate the cost of new replacement items or the ones you currently own?

3.     Can I add the contents insurance later? I currently have almost nothing in appliances and furniture. 

4.     Once you find the right policy, how long does it take to instate it for the property? I understand it has to be in place on contracts exchange day.

Sandtree

1) The survey you have had done is based on someone seeing the property not just a computer algorithm so should be the more accurate, you can always inflate it slightly if you want to be on the safe side

2) Cost of buying EVERYTHING new, people think its only the big items but book collections etc all add up a lot

3) Speak to the insurer in question

4) Instant, if you need it to be, but historically people have said prices are cheaper if you buy a few weeks out - not a distress purchase

FataVerde

Sandtree said:

1) The survey you have had done is based on someone seeing the property not just a computer algorithm so should be the more accurate, you can always inflate it slightly if you want to be on the safe side

2) Cost of buying EVERYTHING new, people think its only the big items but book collections etc all add up a lot

3) Speak to the insurer in question

4) Instant, if you need it to be, but historically people have said prices are cheaper if you buy a few weeks out - not a distress purchase

Brilliant! Thanks!

user1977

FataVerde said:

3.     Can I add the contents insurance later? I currently have almost nothing in appliances and furniture. 

Making amendments during the year is likely to incur an admin charge, which may outweigh any saving in the premium. So probably not worthwhile

Slithery

Rebuild cost is not the same as the current value of the property, it could be either much lower or much higher.
For example in an expensive area the rebuild cost of a small bungalow on a large plot would be lower than the value of just what the land by itself would be worth, whereas if it's a £40k mid-terraced property in an undesirable area it could cost way more than that in just demolition/clearance costs and supporting the adjacent properties before you can even start the rebuild.

p00hsticks

FataVerde said:

FTB and never had any home insurance (or car for that matter) as I always rented so I’d appreciate advice on the following:

1.     Cost of rebuild: Should I use the cost in my Hombuyer’s report (lower) or that automatically suggested by the comparison site (higher by about 60,000)?

The main thing is to ensure that you use an actual rebuild value, not just the valuation of the property for mortgage purposes. Rebuild values are usually higher, especially if the house is semi-detached or terraced (as if anything drastic happened to the property there woudl be additional costs involved in shoring up and making good the neighbouring properties.

400ixl

Personally I would take the higher value for the rebuild costs, give a contents value that will cover everything you will have by the time the policy would expire (so 12 months from taking it out) and if it is done online then you can set the date it will become active (usually 00:01 hours of that day) and you can even set the date of today for most. But best to get the quote a few weeks out and just set the date you want it to become active).

It will only be a matter of a few pounds to set the values at the end of year contents than the start, but could save much more in trying to do any mid term adjustments. All you are doing is setting the maximum values and it doesn't matter if you don't have all of those things today as other than high value items you don't have to declare them.

Brie

re the contents - take a virtual walk through the house and tot up everything in that room that might need to be replaced if a fire gutted the whole building.  rugs, paintings, sofa, TV in the lounge, bed, dressers, bed side tables, bed linen and all your clothes, jewellery in the bedroom, oven, hob, fridge, microwave, kettle, dishes, glassware, cooking pots and utensils and cutlery in the kitchen....  Don't forget the stuff in the garage, shed but check to see if they will actually be covered.

fyi - when we were burgled a number of years back I thought there wasn't really all that much taken and not much to claim.  After all other than a bit of cash there was a couple of watches and some relatively inexpensive jewelry.  Once we did the mental walk through the jewelry box we realised that and the rest totaled £5k.  i.e if a pair of silver earrings cost £20 and there's 30 pairs then that's £600, add grandma's opals etc etc etc

FataVerde

p00hsticks said:

FataVerde said:

FTB and never had any home insurance (or car for that matter) as I always rented so I’d appreciate advice on the following:

1.     Cost of rebuild: Should I use the cost in my Hombuyer’s report (lower) or that automatically suggested by the comparison site (higher by about 60,000)?

The main thing is to ensure that you use an actual rebuild value, not just the valuation of the property for mortgage purposes. Rebuild values are usually higher, especially if the house is semi-detached or terraced (as if anything drastic happened to the property there woudl be additional costs involved in shoring up and making good the neighbouring properties.

That makes sense! I'll send my surveyor an email. It is mid-terrace in London. The market value is 37K and the rebuild value was set at 12k by my surveyor and 18k by a comparison site.

FataVerde

Brie said:

re the contents - take a virtual walk through the house and tot up everything in that room that might need to be replaced if a fire gutted the whole building.  rugs, paintings, sofa, TV in the lounge, bed, dressers, bed side tables, bed linen and all your clothes, jewellery in the bedroom, oven, hob, fridge, microwave, kettle, dishes, glassware, cooking pots and utensils and cutlery in the kitchen....  Don't forget the stuff in the garage, shed but check to see if they will actually be covered.

fyi - when we were burgled a number of years back I thought there wasn't really all that much taken and not much to claim.  After all other than a bit of cash there was a couple of watches and some relatively inexpensive jewelry.  Once we did the mental walk through the jewelry box we realised that and the rest totaled £5k.  i.e if a pair of silver earrings cost £20 and there's 30 pairs then that's £600, add grandma's opals etc etc etc

What I don't get is how do you prove that's what you had in the house when it burnt or was burgled? I won't have photos with myself wearing all those things or even receipts fpr most of them. Now that I know, I'll keep everything for appliances and furniture, but the clothing, jewelry, etc. is much harder to document.

FataVerde

400ixl said:

Personally I would take the higher value for the rebuild costs, give a contents value that will cover everything you will have by the time the policy would expire (so 12 months from taking it out) and if it is done online then you can set the date it will become active (usually 00:01 hours of that day) and you can even set the date of today for most. But best to get the quote a few weeks out and just set the date you want it to become active).

It will only be a matter of a few pounds to set the values at the end of year contents than the start, but could save much more in trying to do any mid term adjustments. All you are doing is setting the maximum values and it doesn't matter if you don't have all of those things today as other than high value items you don't have to declare them.

That was what I was considering. Great advice, thanks! Are you basically saying it costs less to adjust the contents value at the end of the year, when you need to renew the policy?