Home Insurance Renewal Time

I am with John Lewis and  I paid around £170 for a complete rebuild of house and contents covered.  I am sure its down to the area you live in that affects cost.

staffy posted:

I am with John Lewis and  I paid around £170 for a complete rebuild of house and contents covered.  I am sure its down to the area you live in that affects cost.

It certainly does, including crime rating (by postcode), flood rating (by postcode), flood history etc - but very much also the value of both house (rebuild cost) and contents, whether cover is new for old, the total amount of valuables you have and maximum cover for individual expensive items, and whether you want anything covered away from home, etc. ..

Out of interest, what did that £170 cover as maximum contents, and what was maximum individual valuable item cover?

I have never had house contents insurance.

When I had some valuable replay tackle I used to worry.

My answer is to use equipment, neither worth pinching, nor beyond replacing without insurance. 

Life can be very simply if you choose to make it so!

ATB from George

Hope your tent does not blow away george

Innocent Bystander posted:

staffy posted:

I am with John Lewis and  I paid around £170 for a complete rebuild of house and contents covered.  I am sure its down to the area you live in that affects cost.

It certainly does, including crime rating (by postcode), flood rating (by postcode), flood history etc - but very much also the value of both house (rebuild cost) and contents, whether cover is new for old, the total amount of valuables you have and maximum cover for individual expensive items, and whether you want anything covered away from home, etc. ..

Out of interest, what did that £170 cover as maximum contents, and what was maximum individual valuable item cover?

I will dig it all out on Tuesdays for you.

staffy posted:

Hope your tent does not blow away george

I could afford a new one! With insurance I’d have paid for a new one long before the old one was worn out!

ATB from George

Hiscox for me. Premium about £530 from memory for building and contents.  Always worth negotiating on price, or raising excess to reduce premium. Never claimed yet, so unlikely to unless significant loss or theft.  No increase in premium from last year. I do shop around each year and have not found comparable cover cheaper elsewhere.

i keep a spreadsheet of contents with receipt details, dates and purchase price as well as photographic evidence off site. You may be surprised at the value of the stuff you accumulate over the years. It is not difficult to breach the 60-75k limit most seem to have.

Interestingly my policy insists on maintaining an alarm that I never use, which they are aware of. More interested in ensuring door and window lock types. When was the last time anyone took any notice of an alarm going off, unless it is keeping you awake?

Nic

nicnaim posted:

Hiscox for me. "

 

You only know how good Insurance is when you need it.   My folks are with Hiscox and I only know this as two nights ago at 7pm, three people tried breaking into their house. The dog went crazy and luckily my dad was able to scare them off - luckily they fled. Anyway the double glazing pane was part jimmied, the insurance was called and a window fixer came round in two hours, piece of mind for my folks.  My mum was singing their praises to my sister in the UK.

I know here in Canada, any item above $5k I have to declare and get special coverage, or the pay out is capped at $5k.  A few years ago Calgary had over land flooding not all insurances did, there were people putting up signs  on the front lawns shaming the companies not paying out, so they had an exodus of people.  Only this year was overland flooding was available as an add on, to mitigate the cost to the insurance companies. so we all pay in the end.

My brother in law's house had an internal flood from a pipe coming off the upstairs bathroom toilet cistern while they were at work. Although only some electronic stuff was directly affected, the insurance company declared that as well as the clearly water-damaged stuff like sofas, books etc,  every electronic item downstairs (TV, HiFi, computer) had to be binned for safety reasons, then they trotted up the entire contents (including  LPs,  CDs and DVDs at full as-new replacement cost, even though most many CDs and DVDs had been bought secondhand) their valuation was about double the insurance cover, so they paid out only half the value of the stuff they binned. Big, painful hit.  The moral is that the most unexpected things can happen, and if you don't want to lose out if it does, make sure cover is no less than entire contents!

My insurance with John Lewis is £339 pa. They informed me the valuables limit does not apply to hi-fi, which is not classed as a valuable (whereas paintings for example are). Worth checking rather than taking for granted.