UK Home Contents Insurance

Contents Insurance is a monthly or yearly premium paid to insurance companies to cover loss or damage to personal possessions. A replacement value for everything in your home should be calculated by you in order to obtain the right amount of cover. Should you experience any loss or damage to your personal home contents, then if you make a claim your insurance company will compensate you but as with any insurance their is a certain amount of money that you will have to find yourself if you do not have the right sort of cover.

 

Home contents insurance is designed to cover almost everything that you own, anything that you would take with you if you were to move. Such things as furniture, household goods, tv’s, computers, videos, DVD’s, clothing, kitchen equipment and as mentioned some policies allow you to cover frozen food in your freezer. Insurance companies will insure valuables up to stated limits. They will insure against theft, fire and flooding. They will also insure against water leaks such as those from tanks and pipes, leaking oil from heating systems, subsidence caused by landslip, even damage caused by fallen trees, you can make a claim an earthquake strikes your area.

Many policies include Liability Insurance, should someone visit you at home and were to trip or injure themselves whilst in your property they can actually make a claim against you. These claims can be for a considerable amount depending on the injury and Liability Insurance would help you in this sort of situation.
Accidental Damage can also be covered in an extended policy, should any of your property TV, DVD, Computer be damaged accidentally you could make a claim on your insurance. Having said this, your goods are only normally covered if they are in your own home and they will not be covered if you lend them to someone else.
It is advisable to insure many expensive items like jewellery or antiques separately as there can be a limit applied to the contents insurance payout for a single item. Obviously the more expensive the item, the more it is worth so the premium for them to be included will be greater.

Precious items that you need to take out of your home can be covered by specialists insurers. Items such as musical instruments, photography equipment etc may need to be transported and a specialist insurer would understand this and insure you appropriately.

What is Tenants contents insurance?

If you rent any property whether it be furnished or unfurnished then it is better to insure the contents as you may be held responsible for any damage that may occur to them. Accidents as you will agree do happen and it is beneficial to be covered for such accidents. A landlord may already have his/her contents insured, you would be wise to cover the value of the deposit that you had to make on the property before moving in.

If you rent an unfurnished property you can insure your own contents and your personal possessions outside the property too, this type of policy is called an ‘all risk’ policy.
Say your freezer broke down and it was full of food, if you had insurance cover you could make a claim for such an unfortunate event, you have the option of covering anything from frozen food in the deep freezer to personal possessions and furniture. You should always be aware of the cover you are given, will the contents be replaced on a new for old basis.
Landlords are completely responsible for holding buildings insurance as they actually own the building.