Top Tips for Picking a Contents Insurance Policy

Whether you’re buying or renting a property in London, you’re going to need contents insurance. These policies protect what’s inside your home from fire, theft, and other damage. Simply put, you need it just in case some emergency situation leaves you without your most valued possessions.

The trick comes in choosing the right contents insurance for you. Don’t just pick the first policy that you see. Instead, follow this advice to get the most comprehensive policy possible.

Tip #1 – Choosing the Right Type

Typically, your insurance provider will offer you a choice of three types of contents insurance. These are as follows:

  • Sum Insured – You figure out the value of your possessions and take out a policy based on that. This is usually the option that you’ll get if you use a price comparison website to choose a policy.
  • Unlimited Sum Insured – The insurance policy has no limits, so it protects everything in the house at all times. The drawback to this is that you often have to pay more for the privilege.
  • Bedroom Rated – Your insurer figures out how much cover you need based on the number of bedrooms in your property. This is an estimate that usually works out to about £50,000 worth of cover. That’s usually enough to cover most properties, but you may want to reconsider if you have a lot of valuable collectibles, jewellery, or similar items that have more value than the average collection of household furniture.

Choose carefully when picking your policy. A Bedroom Rated policy may not always provide an accurate estimate, but it’s much easier to take out. Unlimited Sum Insured policies offer the most comprehensive policies at a higher price, while Sum Insured offers you more control over the specifics.

Tip #2 – Check the Single Article Limit

While the above allows you to ensure the general contents of the building, you probably have a few valuables that you want to take specific care of.

Contents insurance providers use the Single Article Limit for this purpose. This is the maximum amount that they will pay out on a single thing in your home.

By default, this is usually set at around £1,500. However, this may not be enough if you have a particularly valuable piece in your home. For example, you may have a piece of jewellery that’s worth thousands of pounds. Taking out a policy with such a small Single Article Limit means that you won’t be able to replace that item fully as part of your insurance policy. You’ll only get $1,500 towards it.

Speak to your insurer about their Single Article Limit. Most will raise it if you have items of higher value, though you may have to pay more for the privilege.

Tip #3 – Insuring Electrical Devices

Most policies cover electrical items that you’ll take out of your home on occasion. Laptops and mobile phones are good examples of this.

However, not all cover the things that are stored in those electrical items. For example, you may have spent hundreds of pounds on music downloads that are lost when something happens to your laptop. If your policy doesn’t cover those downloads, you may have to buy all of them again.

Check the policy to see if it covers these digital losses. Most don’t, but you may find a few that do.

The Final Word

That covers the major things that you need to know about contents insurance.

Now, you need a home to put your contents in. Get in touch with the Hills Estate team to find out about great properties for sale and rent in London, Ilford, Essex, and Redbridge.