Home insurance - relevant?

DullGreyGuy

Acidforums said:

Thank you and apologies for the vague initial first post on here
I simply meant the contents part, alot of our stuff can be replaced , I  mean i rather it doesnt get stolen or damaged due to a major even but at the same time its an additional cost (especially if excesses are added on top which I would then think twice to replace)

In terms of buildings cover, yes crucial as its rainy day, what I wanted to check with this is how do we ensure we are getting value, I mean I hope its never used BUT if it was I woudl want my full value worth of it 

The average UK household has over £40,000 of stuff in their home... given if it all went up in smoke you'd only have a single excess to pay the majority of people wouldn't have £39,800 of spare cash sitting around to replace everything. Ok sure you may not want to replace everything as some things were sentimental and so wouldn't be replaced but just the cost of new furniture for every single room, basic clothing, everything you need in a kitchen all adds up very quickly even if you are buying budget items. 

The way to ensure you get "full value" is make sure you insure it for the full value. People under estimate their value, sometimes significantly and insurers have an averaging clause so in once case the policyholder had insured the contents of their home for £10,000 whereas the true value was more like £60,000 as he'd insured it for 1/6th then any claim paid would be at 1/6th the value. In fairness to the insurer, they were being generous because they could have said it was reckless to underestimate the value so much and so could have voided the policy instead. 

Also make sure you understand about some of the features that are only on higher products like Matching Sets or Trace & Access or would you be happy living with 2 kitchen units not matching the rest of the kitchen?