How Much Do You Think Your ENTIRE Home Contents Should Be Insured For?

[fionas]

I've got to redo mine because I'm about to go on a spending spree to get nice things for our new house. I actually don't know what my $ current contents insurance is for

[Cassius2]

we are mega under-insured. it has been the bane of my existence with DH. he hates all things insurance...it suited us AOK before we owned a house and had a couple hundred k in the bank...but now that it is all on the house and he still can't get his head around the fact that there is no other money....grrrrr!!!!

i can't wait until ours is up for renewal cause i will sooo be taking over lol!

[Jennifer13]

Correct me if I am wrong, Curly, but I am 99% sure that if you are under-insured then your policy usually doesn't fully cover you. For example, your contents is worth $100,000 but you only insure for $80,000. You are 20% under-insured. So when you come to claim on your policy, the company will discount your payout by 20%. So instead of getting $80,000 you will only get $74,000 (ie: 20% less).

So you need to be very careful when setting your insured value.

This is true.

So while you don't think you will replace items, you still may need to include them in your contents insurance, so you don't run the risk of being under-insured (in the eyes of your insurer, remember, not you!). It's not that you'll be getting extra $$ for them anyway, since even if you include what you believe is everything there's very little chance you'll be over-calculating. Insurance companies estimate that as few as 18% of people who have contents insurance are adequately covered.

Remember you only need to list individual items that are of value, so specific pieces of jewellery (with receipts/valuation certificates), or other significant items. We have our DVDs specified as simply 'DVD collection' with the value that they are worth (so higher than the maximum allowed on the policy if you don't specify, if that makes sense). Take photos of these things too, for your records.

It's actually more likely that you won't be claiming for all of your contents, but to replace some things lost/stolen/damaged (fire, flood, etc).

If you're unsure, can I recommend you check out NRMA Insurance's info on their website. There's a section called 'Understanding Insurance' that includes some downloadable brochures on Insurance Basics and What You Need To Know About Insurance (bottom of this page). These might help to answer some of your questions. (You don't have to be an NRMA customer and these are not about their products, just insurance in general).

[Jaycee]

We have a list just like the one you're in the process of doing Bath. It's an excel spreadsheet that lists all contents by room and value. I was also careful to over-estimate the value of things just a little and also didn't take into account whether or not I bought it on sale, I listed it at the cost I would pay without it being on sale. We are currently insured for $80,000 and I feel this is adequete for us at the moment, as we too live in quite a humble home, no flat screen tv's etc.

P.S Thanks for reminding me I need to update my list too

[briggsy's girl]

ok, question (this thread has inspired me to go through and make an actual list rather than guessing!)

do you include heating and airconditioning in home or contents?
and if you have landscaped gardens, where does that go?

[Jaycee]

Hmm, that's a good question BG.

I've never had to think about that as I've always been a renter, but we're building a house at the moment so those questions will be relevant to me in a few months time.

My first thought would be that both would be part of the cost of the home, not the contents. Things like carpet, curtains etc are usually part of your home insurance so I'm guessing a/c and landscaping would be the same. Don't quote me on it though

[briggsy's girl]

carpet and curtains - i thought they were contents now house...

hmmm time to go investigating

you'd think i'd know this given my rellos were insurance agents - but they made it too easy for me - just asked a few questions and did it all for me!

[~Gee_Whizzy~]

ok, question (this thread has inspired me to go through and make an actual list rather than guessing!)

do you include heating and airconditioning in home or contents?
and if you have landscaped gardens, where does that go?

not sure about landscaping, but you can put aircon units and heaters under "motor burnout" insurance which is an add on to the contents insurance. the catch is that they have to be under 10 years old to be covered.....only reason i know this is we've just changed over to a different ins company and have opted for that cover

[briggsy's girl]

ok, i just ran an estimator and i don't know if our house is seriously underinsured on the building side of things now!

we have a large-ish house, i won't like - but the NRMA/RACV estimate said upwards of half a million (almost 600k) to rebuild! and thats basically JUST the house and floor coverings - everything else comes into contents!

[~Gee_Whizzy~]

ok, i just ran an estimator and i don't know if our house is seriously underinsured on the building side of things now!

we have a large-ish house, i won't like - but the NRMA/RACV estimate said upwards of half a million (almost 600k) to rebuild! and thats basically JUST the house and floor coverings - everything else comes into contents!

BG - insurance is sooo confusing sometimes!

[Jaycee]

Wow that's huge BG!

[Bathsheba]

BG: we rent so I am only listing the portable column heater. There is ducted central heating but that's the owners responsibility. No a/c but I'll list our fans.

I'm actually enjoying making this list... Fascinating how many items I had never thought about replacement value... We were given our large Bbq for instance. I'm not listing every toy though, just the expensive ones and collections like the Lego and train sets.

[briggsy's girl]

i think i need some advice about the house insurance - might get in contact with my aunt when she gets home from holidays - i get that it replaces house, shed, carport, verandah, pergola, fences etc etc - but still, almost 600k sounds really really REALLY expensive to replace a house built in the 90's

[fionas]

BG - my new house is 239sqm and I've insured it for $750K. Now this was a bit of a guesstimate but when I was looking at building a house, the sort of thing I like is $2,000 - 4,000 per sqm. So I figured $3000 would be safe. I like good (ie. expensive) architecture - vaulted ceilings etc. but am willing to compromise on finishes. Then I allowed a bit extra for the fact we'd have to rent somewhere else in the meantime.

So it's really how long is a piece of string question because you can build for much less than I've allowed but I'd rather pay a few hundred extra a year for insurance and have peace of mind that if the absolute worst happened, I could build a house that I like/be happy in.

[Jaycee]

BG it doesn't matter what age the house is, it needs to be insured for what it would cost today to rebuild that size house. Taking into consideration u have a large house and all the additions, verandas etc 600k sounds reasonable.

For your info, the house we're building is costing 300k alone with no verandas, fences etc so it seems right to me

[briggsy's girl]

aw crud!
i was thinking it was a way over estimation of the value - we live rather rural so things just aren't as exxy out here i don't think. oh well - time to get myself doing some research. wonder if i can get much done while DD sleeps through the days....

[onthefly]

This has prompted me to recalculate ours, thanks!

I've tried to tally everything up, with fairly generous estimates (though in many cases complete guesses) and it still comes in under 60k... we don't have much and no fancy stuff, but does that still seem quite low?

Can I ask, roughly, what you assign to clothing and personal effects...? I don't have it in me to actually tally it all up individually

[briggsy's girl]

have a rough think of how much you spend on your clothes - and roughly how much of each there is

the way i worked it out was to work out how many pants (broken down into tracksuits/jeans/crops/work pants), tops (singlets/tees/long sleeve/work/dress), dresses, suits - at a guess. then worked out what i'd average pay for them (20 for trakkies etc) - i will have to have pics of my extremely overpacked wardrobe for evidence as i used to sell clothes and have a VERY extensive wardrobe - ranging over a few sizes.

keep in mind things like pj's, underwear (for bigger busted chickies, you're paying a lot for a bra etc) and factor that in. you can do a rough, but reasonable guesstimate of your clothes.



also, dont' forget things like doonas, sleeping bags, pillows (i get migraines if i have a crap pillow, so i have to pay about 100 for my pillows!), blankets, sleeping bags, spare linen. i think i might even have to insure the MCN stash lol