To put a total on the amount of things you might need to insure – your home’s contents – probably means the same as those things you’d take with you if you were to move home. So it’s the furniture, the higi, the TV, the clothing and the valuables. It’s not the windows or the walls, and probably not the doors or the roof either.
If you take out a home contents insurance policy, you will be covered typically for the loss, theft, flooding of, or damage to, the contents that are listed in your policy. There will be a limit on the amount you can claim but in essence most items of less than premium value will be replaced.
Some policies will replace new for old, some replace at current value, and some will replace a portion of your contents under new for old and others simpy at value.
You may want to know if you are covered for the high risk items – often the policy will list a limit that can be paid for any one particular item, say £1500. You can separately list items that cost more than that, and some policies will have a higher limit that will apply for all items.
In other situations, you need to watch out for the contents insurance cover around holidays, Christmas, gifts you may have bought or received – basically everything exceptional you might want to cover may be possible to insure under a comprehensive home contents insurance policy.
The figure for a typical households’ contents value is something like £40,000 – so it pays to ensure your stuff is covered from the word go.
Also take careful note if you sublet or let out your house without telling the insurance company. In that case, loss or damage to items you own in the house might well be declared null and void!
Finally, any business that is operated from your home will also need to be specifically covered because losses arising from the operation of a business from your home will undoubtedly not be covered under a typical personal home contents insurance policy.
