We’ve got contents insurance with AA and from next year we’ll be paying 33% more. We have had 2 claims for a different policy this year, one at fault, one not, and they said it wouldn’t impact our premiums. Is this common for everyone? I understand it goes up because of all the floods, but 33% is very significant.
Not sure sorry.
But it does raise the question about at which point is a revolving credit a better deal then contents insurance?
Assume that you have $100k of contents; you pay X to insure it; is X more or less than the 8.39%pa on $100k? How likely are you to loose all $100k of the contents?
e.g. if you say knock your TV off the wall, a new 50" TV is say $2500; the cost of $2500 over 5 years is $57/month. How much are you paying on your contents?
This is not good advice; if you break stuff often, or you can’t put your “insurance” money into a savings account.
Yeah valid point. We’re mainly covering it in case of a total loss, ie our house burns down.
For the rest we don’t have expensive items, we have a $600 Warehouse Veon TV for example. Probably most expensive in our contents is my ebike with new price $1450
That’s really the only reason to have contents insurance. I don’t have the contents insurance to hand.
House insurance is a no-brainer; I just checked mine and we pay ~0.25% of the value of the house to insure it.
Yeah, we something similar. Contents is more expensive, we’re going to pay about 800 for 120k insured. Still, important to have, but perhaps going to increase excess as Dave suggested @[email protected]
Is $120k appropriate? I feel like we have lots of stuff, but if the house burned down we’d only be looking to replace the key stuff. Beds, computers, furniture, clothes, etc.
We have $40k coverage and I have trouble justifying that much!
I thought it was too much too, but it adds up quickly. We’ve got 5 bikes, roughly $5k. Kitchen appliances, another $3k. Washing machine and dryer, $1500. Clothes per person, $5k, times 4. TV, gaming console, $1500. PC and monitors, $1500. NAS, $1000. Curtains. Bread maker. Garden tools. DIY tools. Desks. And so on.
I filled out a calculator online and it even said more, but we went with $120k. When my house burns down I don’t want to be in a position we’re underinsured.
In the very unlikely event of total loss, we wouldn’t be replacing everything. Just the minimum. Sure we have a breadmaker we never use and a big pile of tools accumulated over time as needed and even a TV that we hardly use, as well as big piles of clothes that we only wear a fraction of but really we would just be buying essentials and starting again so $40k should cover that. We don’t have expensive taste anyway.
Contents insurance is on the cheap end of insurance so I wouldn’t stress about it too much, keep ot high if that makes you comfortable. I just have trouble thinking of how we would possibly find enough to spend $120k on! I think I should find a calculator and see if there’s something I’m missing.
One thing often overlooked is that your contents insurance is also where your liability insurance lies. So it’s not just for your stuff, but also in case one of your trees falls on the neighbour’s Lamborghini, or you’re otherwise responsible for property damage of someone else’s stuff.
Contents insurance is important. If you’re trying to self-insure then just put your excess high and the contents insured value low.
Good point