Affordable Insurance Cover

Posted by: pcm on 14 August 2001

Hi, tout le monde!
After some years of furtive searching, I may have found affordable insurance cover for Naim gear: if the replacement value at today's market prices of your Naim equipment way surpasses the overall limit of your household contents insurance, take heart! Telephone Britannia Building Society, local branch, and ask for details of their "Multiguard" policy which is based on the total rebuilding costs of your property (don't ask me why!!!) but claims to have a no limit cover for your household contents and they do not require proof of purchase nor impose the ususal endorsement of installing and maintaining a burglar alarm. Their rates seem to me to be easily the best of all the many I have contacted over the past few years.
The Kidderminster branch would be especially pleased to hear from you on 01562 754272.
I have no financial interest in posting this message, honest!
pcm
Posted on: 14 August 2001 by Alex S.
The money's on its way.

alex

Posted on: 14 August 2001 by Martin Payne
PCM,

just one query - in addition to limits on the total which is insured many policies also have a limit for any one item.

Hopefully this is not applicable to your policy, or the limits are much higher than the value of your most expensive component?

cheers, Martin

Posted on: 14 August 2001 by pcm
Britannia do not impose single article limit on those household contents not classified as "Valuables" or "Personal Possessions" even though I was personally forthcoming as to the exact replacement value of each of my Naim components. They do not see hi-fi, apparently however expensive, as "VALUABLE" - O joy!
pcm
Posted on: 15 August 2001 by David Hobbs-Mallyon
When I started looking for insurance cover for my hifi, most companies wouldn't do it. The reason seemed to be that most consider hifi 'high risk' items and I was only allowed a certain proportion of overall contents to be high-risk. Then you get limits on each piece for high-risk items.

On recommendation from another forum member I tried Legal and General. L&G do not consider hifi as high-risk and therefore you just have to insure total contents. In my case I found my insurance premium actually reduced from my previous company.

David

Posted on: 15 August 2001 by Michael
I changed my policy from Legal and General...who needed to put a value on total contents, to Abbey National. The other correspondant however correctly states that L & G do not see hi fi as high risk any more. A few years back this was not the case and I was asked by them to provide serial numbers and values of all parts of the system..and of course the premiums were high.

Abbey National offer unlimited cover on contents with no single item limit, they also offer a discount if your buildings are already insured by them. The only things seen as high risk are works of art, jewellery etc.

So it seems there are aeveral companies offering cover for our beloved equipment at a reasonable rate.

Posted on: 15 August 2001 by Not For Me
I can tell you all from personal experience that the Halifax Building Society considers Hi-Fi high risk, and even their top policy puts a limit of £10k for all high risk items. I lost £8k of replacement value as a result of this.

Check your policy!

David

Posted on: 15 August 2001 by Matthew T
If your items are not seen as high risk by your insurance company then they will probably not be covered for any form of accidental damage, only for fire and theft, check your policy carefully. I got a reasonable quote for contents only with my hifi items individualled listed and priced but at no extra cost from Sun Alliance (I think).

Matthew

Posted on: 15 August 2001 by Michael
Yes accidental damage is included in the policy from A/N. This was essential!
Posted on: 15 August 2001 by Chris Dolan
It is very important to check your policy - they do differ a lot!

Don't forget that insurance is a "good faith" contract so you have a duty to disclose to the insurer matters that might affect their decision to offer insurance cover.

Accidental damage is a key issue. I found recently some lenders are excluding this from their standard cover to appear to offer a lower premium. I think they take the view that people don't notice what is not mentioned in the cover.

I recently changed my household cover to something similar to the policy pcm is referring to. I was concerned to ensure that the "valuables" defition and single item value limits did not catch the hi-fi - but mine is ok.

If anyone does contact their insurer for more info try to find out whether the insurer treats tt arm and cartridge a 1 item or 3 - I could not get a definitive answer!

However my home policy does have a limit on bicycles that they would not increase - so don't just think hi-fi.

Also think fire. Keep an inventory or other evidence of contents - I keep meaning to catalogue my albums but never get round to it, so as I temporary measure I've photographed them and left a set of prints elsewhere for back-up.

Chris