The Importance of Contents Insurance
Thursday, May 21st, 2009According to the Home Office, there were a staggering 2 million burglaries in the UK in 2005. Compare this to the number of home fires in the same year, just 300,000, and you’ll see that a burglary is six times more likely to occur than a home fire. Yet when most people purchase their home insurance policies, it is protection against the loss of the home itself, such as due to fire, that they think about. Most home owners don’t realize that, despite the more likely threat of burglary, home insurance policies without comprehensive riders for contents have definite weaknesses.
These weaknesses make home owners vulnerable to financial loss when a burglary occurs. For example, if a purse is stolen outside of the home, home owners insurance alone may not cover the contents. Additionally, home owners insurance may not properly cover any item that is worth over £2,000 which is exactly the kind of item burglars are seeking.
The fact that the contents of your home are vulnerable to situations that ordinarily do not affect the home itself means that home contents insurance is essential to your policy coverage. A thorough home contents insurance policy will protect you if an item such as a fur coat is stolen or damaged, whether or not it was in your home at the time of the burglary.
When purchasing home contents insurance, it is important to make a record of the more expensive items it will cover. Using a camera to photograph your possessions and storing the photos offsite is an extremely good idea. Keep any bills of sale you may have in this file. Another good reason to catalogue your items is to ascertain their collective value more accurately. Using this figure, you can be confident that you are not underinsured or paying for coverage you don’t need. Alternately, knowing the fiscal value of your home’s contents will help you distinguish between financial value, or the value the insurance company will reimburse, versus the sentimental value of an item. Although you rightly cherish a picture your mother painted, the insurance company cannot place a high financial value on it.
Your home is more than an investment; it is the place in which your life unfolds. Comprehensive home contents insurance, in addition to educating yourself about fire and theft prevention, is one of the most important steps you can take to protect the fruits of that journey.