In this week’s article I will be taking a more in depth look at Contents Insurance. If you would like to find out more about Home Insurance or Landlords Insurance just refer back to one of our previous articles here:
What Is Contents Insurance?
So what is Contents Insurance refers to your own personal possessions, predominantly any items and belongings that would be removed from the property. Common examples of Contents include furniture, clothing, electronic goods, and other valuables such as jewellery.
If you are a tenant (someone who rents their house from a private landlord/council etc.) then contents insurance could be a good investment for you. You wouldn’t require a full Home Insurance policy; this is because you don’t need Building insurance as you do not own the building.
Financial Interest
As the golden rule of insurance is you can only insure something you have financial interest in, meaning if something went wrong you can be reimbursed. If you do not have financial interest in something and you want to insure it you can’t because you would not be affected if something wrong. An example you couldn’t insure your neighbour’s computer because you have no financial interest in that computer, and would not lose out if your neighbour had a claim.
Single Article Limit
Most insurers impose a ‘single item limit’ on contents policies, which means you might not be able to claim for the full value of expensive items, such as jewellery or gadgets. Contents insurance covers you up a set amount e.g. £50,000 so you can claim up to this amount. However your policy will more than likely include a single article limit which will normally be around £1500 – £2500.
So what does this mean if you have a £2000 single article limit on your policy, then you would not be able to claim for anyone item above £2000 limit even if the total claim was under £50,000. Consequently if you own any valuables above £2000 then you could lose out.
An example of this is say your home contents were damaged in a fire you could put in a claim for various belongings that added up in value to £30,000, expecting your insures pay out in full. However if one of those items was ring worth £3500, the insurer would pay out only up the single item limit of £2000 – unless you listed the item separately on your policy when you took out your insurance.
Specified Items
So in order to avoid the mishap of only been paid out up to a certain amount for a single item, you need to specify this on you contents insurance policy. This will increase the cost of your insurance but you will be fully covered if you were in the unfortunate situation of a claim.
If you have a high valued item such as Rolex Watch worth £10,000+ then you need to ensure that this specified on your insurance if it isn’t insured elsewhere. Although it is not an insurance requirement it is good to have up to date valuations on your high valued items to ensure, you will get the best pay out on them in the event of a claim and not just a standard price.
Additional Cover
Like with Landlords insurance within contents insurance there are additional covers that you can have built into your contents cover policy. Additional extras that you can have are:
This covers you for contents that you take away from your home such as Jewellery, Watches and Mobile Phones etc. So this means if these were to get damaged or stolen away from the home you would be covered.
White goods such as a washing machine, fridge etc. then this cover is ideal. White Goods cover protects these assets.
If there was accidental damage caused to your contents then you would be covered e.g. Television falling from wall mount.
As I said previously contents insurance is good for tenants just as a standalone product, but if you do own your own home, don’t think that you cannot have this as well this can be built into your home insurance policy in the contents section.
I hope this has cleared up many questions you may have had regarding Contents Insurance.
If you do have any more questions, please feel free to leave a comment with your question below. You can also click our “Get A Quote” for a competitive landlords insurance quote via the button below:
Next week I will be talking about Buildings Insurance, if you have any questions you would like answering on this please leave a comment below, or on our Social Media profile, and I will answer it in next Friday’s blog.