A recent study by insurance provider Direct Line has suggested that as many as half of British home owners are undervaluing the contents in their property which could leave them severely out of pocket should your property be burgled, or damaged by flooding or fire.
Out of the estimated 50% of home owners who are underinsured, 26% are reported to under estimate the cost of their contents such as furniture, electrical goods and clothes. The average worth of home contents is in the region of £20,000, however many policyholders fail to take out cover up to this value.
However a further 20% of Brits fail to take out any form of home contents insurance policy at all, despite the fact that the average cost of contents for people in this group is £14,000.
4 in 10 home owners also fail to update their home contents insurance policy when they inherit items such as jewellery, ceramics, paintings or furniture from relatives.
When calculating the worth of your contents, the advice being given is to estimate how much it would cost you to replace all of your items should they all be wiped out by fire or flooding, and not to estimate how much your items are actually worth. Looking room by room at how much it would cost to replace each item will give a more accurate idea of how much home contents insurance you need.
