Home Contents Insurance FAQs
Home insurance covers two areas: building and contents. Here Adrian Flux Insurance Services, a specialist in home insurance, answers some frequently asked questions on contents insurance – that is, insurance for your possessions.
What items are covered by home contents insurance? Typically, contents insurance will cover your posessions within your home, including most furniture and non-permanent fixtures, as well as carpets.Optionally certain items may also be covered away from the home.
What does contents insurance protect me from? Contents insurance will reimburse you for your losses if your belongings are damaged by fire, storm, flood, earthquake, lightning, explosions, vandalism, water leakage, oil leakage, etc. or if they are stolen in a break in.There is usually the option to add cover for accidental damage.
Whats the point of new for old contents cover? With contents cover “New for Old” is actually the basic policy and “Accidental Damage” would be the most usual upgrade. With contents insurance insurers will always replace damaged goods with new, where possible and in fact the upgrade is only making reference to the perils covers as opposed to the way a policy is paid out. The term “standard” is used in conjunction with buildings insurance and is essentially exactly the same as “new for old” on contents. Even a “New for Old” policy will normally have Accidental Damage cover for your TV, stereo and desk top computer, although beware as some no frill policies have come on to the market recently that dont offer this protection.
What is accidental damage cover? A standard contents cover will pay out in the event of damage due to a range of causes, as above. Some policies also include cover for items damaged by you or others in your household accidentally. Whilst this is standard on some policies, on others it is an option, and the extra cover offered can obviously have an impact on price. Check on the policy wording, though, because many new for old contents policies will include accidental damage to certain items anyway. TVs, stereos and desktop computers are often covered for accidental damage already, without having to pay anything extra.
Are contents automatically protected away from the home? Youll need to check your policy. Assuming it does offer protection, make sure its enough to cover the items you commonly take away, the amount of cover can often be increased if you require it.
Whats better, all risks or specified items? Specified items (such as expensive bicycles, cameras, laptops, jewellery and so on) can add up to a significant portion of the total premium. The ‘all risks’ option is a cheaper way to protect items away from home, provided the cover is high enough – check the small print or talk to your insurance provider.
In that case, is it better to insure items that need individual cover with a separate policy? In general, no. If certain items do need to be covered individually, it’s almost always cheaper to do it as an extra on the contents cover rather than taking out a separate, specialist policy. If you have a large number of high-value items, there are a wide range of policies on offer which are tailored to this requirement available via our Flux Private Clients team.
Do I have to insure building and contents under the same policy? No, you can take out separate policies. However, its nearly always cheaper to insure building and contents together as a package.
For more information, check out the Association of British Insurers (ABI) website or speak to our highly trained staff..
“In addition to our general home contents of £50,000, we have audio equipment of £15,000 and jewellery valued at £14,000 in our home. Because of the higher risk of burglary these items present, getting good value home insurance for high value contents can be difficult to find. But thanks to Adrian Flux, we have the home insurance cover we need for our audio equipment and jewellery at an affordable price.” Mrs M, NG14
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