Home insurance with a couple of high value items

Sterlingtimes

Could standard insurance using comparison sites meet this scenario?

The figures are slightly different to the real ones.

House value £350,000. Rebuild cost £220,000
Contents value (excluding clocks) £15,000
Two clocks worth £7,500 each, i.e. £15,000
No jewellery.

Could the clocks just be itemised, or would specialist insurance be required? This does not sound like high net worth.

DullGreyGuy

Sterlingtimes said:

Could standard insurance using comparison sites meet this scenario?

The figures are slightly different to the real ones.

House value £350,000. Rebuild cost £220,000
Contents value (excluding clocks) £15,000
Two clocks worth £7,500 each, i.e. £15,000
No jewellery.

Could the clocks just be itemised, or would specialist insurance be required? This does not sound like high net worth.

Yes

Insurers vary massively on what their unspecified item limit is, some are as low as £750 and some as high as £15,000. Some want anything over that declared others only traditional valuables and some a middle ground with "tech" being declarable but sofas etc not. 

£15,000 for all contents excluding the clocks is exceptionally low, well under half the UK average of c£50,000. Are you sure you have added up the brand new value of EVERYTHING in the home? It's not just things you want to insure, it's all those old CDs you dont listen to, pots and pans in the kitchen, furniture, bedding etc. 

Are the clocks a matching pair?

HNW typically have a minimum rebuild of £750k and minumum contents of £150k for a light policy and double for a full fat one. 

Remember irrespective of if you have a specialist policy or not you need to declare the items on your Home insurance if they are kept in your home (assuming they are above the single article limit)

Sterlingtimes

DullGreyGuy said:

Insurers vary massively on what their unspecified item limit is, some are as low as £750 and some as high as £15,000. Some want anything over that declared others only traditional valuables and some a middle ground with "tech" being declarable but sofas etc not. 

£15,000 for all contents excluding the clocks is exceptionally low, well under half the UK average of c£50,000. Are you sure you have added up the brand new value of EVERYTHING in the home? It's not just things you want to insure, it's all those old CDs you dont listen to, pots and pans in the kitchen, furniture, bedding etc. 

Are the clocks a matching pair?

Thank you, DullGrey. My numbers were slightly contrived for the sake of illustration. The clocks are not a pair. Based on your answer, I feel there are too many variables to rely on a formulated quotation. The young man is buying his first home. His parents would like to "transfer" some family valuables to him but would not want them to be inadequately insured. Perhaps the young man (who worries about his insurance premium) would be better placed using a broker.

DullGreyGuy

Sterlingtimes said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Insurers vary massively on what their unspecified item limit is, some are as low as £750 and some as high as £15,000. Some want anything over that declared others only traditional valuables and some a middle ground with "tech" being declarable but sofas etc not. 

£15,000 for all contents excluding the clocks is exceptionally low, well under half the UK average of c£50,000. Are you sure you have added up the brand new value of EVERYTHING in the home? It's not just things you want to insure, it's all those old CDs you dont listen to, pots and pans in the kitchen, furniture, bedding etc. 

Are the clocks a matching pair?

Thank you, DullGrey. My numbers were slightly contrived for the sake of illustration. The clocks are not a pair. Based on your answer, I feel there are too many variables to rely on a formulated quotation. The young man is buying his first home. His parents would like to "transfer" some family valuables to him but would not want them to be inadequately insured. Perhaps the young man (who worries about his insurance premium) would be better placed using a broker.

We can ultimately discuss only based on what we are told and so whilst not being super accurate is fine you'll get more useful answers if they are at least in the right order of magnitude. 

I;d look at a blanket policy, the M&S Premier (u/w by Aviva) is one that works well for us as its unlimited contents and buildings, £50k sum of all valuables, £15k any single item and you can add all risks/personal possessions if you want to. 

They just need to be sure of values individually and in aggregate.

Home is a fairly complex product with various different limits, aggregators are fine for the majority of people and if it's just 2 high value items and everything else under £1k it'll be ok. People with £7k clocks however tend to have more valuable items than just that. 

Problem with brokers is that they are typically non-advisory so dont really add much value unless you are going for the High Net Worth policies (and even those you have Hiscox and DL offering a cut down direct to consumer version). They arent very good at placing skewed customers, we looked at moving away from M&S this year, most brokers couldn't quote, NFU would but hate the wife's handbags so was something like £5k and one broker managed to get one quote of £2k if we were to get a monitored alarm installed... M&S want £600

Sterlingtimes

DullGreyGuy said:

We can ultimately discuss only based on what we are told and so whilst not being super accurate is fine you'll get more useful answers if they are at least in the right order of magnitude. 

I'd look at a blanket policy, the M&S Premier (u/w by Aviva) is one that works well for us as its unlimited contents and buildings, £50k sum of all valuables, £15k any single item and you can add all risks/personal possessions if you want to. 

You have been very kind and helpful with several pointers. I have a Covea policy that costs me £1,500 annually. The young man will initially have few valuable things, but there will be additions. I will now have a look at M&S Premiere. The young man is sensible but gets his priorities a little skewed.

Sterlingtimes

DullGreyGuy said:

I;d look at a blanket policy, the M&S Premier (u/w by Aviva) is one that works well for us as its unlimited contents and buildings, £50k sum of all valuables, £15k any single item and you can add all risks/personal possessions if you want to. 

I am returning to thank you again. Insurance effected with M&S Premier. A perfect call.

torchie

We have buildings and contents cover currently with Aviva. My wife has a couple rings that we specifcy on the all-risks sections of the policy in and out of the home. One ring is c£10000 and the other is c£6000.  I am not sure with Avvia what their "ceiling" is for specified items - not sure however that a specialist broker will be needed unless the required levels of cover keep going up and up rapidly

DullGreyGuy

torchie said:

We have buildings and contents cover currently with Aviva. My wife has a couple rings that we specifcy on the all-risks sections of the policy in and out of the home. One ring is c£10,000 and the other is c£6,000.  I am not sure with Avvia what their "ceiling" is for specified items - not sure however that a specialist broker will be needed unless the required levels of cover keep going up and up rapidly

Aviva underwrite the aforementioned M&S policy and they cover items up to £15,000 without them needing to be specified but they dont allow you to specify anything over £15k either.  

They do a UHNW policy too which covers a single piece of jewellery up to £50,000 without being specified or non-jewellery valuables up to £150,000 without being specified. Any single item worth more than that has to be specified and be added to the schedule. 

They have various levels between the two and below the M&S one depending on your overall need.