House contents insurance

Insuring your house contents

Many of your pieces of home equipment can be expensive items, especially if they are bought separately. A television, a computer or the best hi-fi system can easily empty your bank account, depending on the types of products. Plus, when you combine the cost of each item, you can see how big of an investment you have made in home equipment. There is a good chance that your computer is a vital part of your work life, and replacements for your computer can add up quickly if it becomes lost, stolen or damaged. Perhaps you may also need extra cover around the holidays, particularly if you are anticipating an abundance of hi-tech gadgets in your home. How can you protect your home contents against damage or theft? Is there a policy specifically for this purpose?

Contents insurance can provide cover to repair damage or replace items in the event of a burglary, storm, vandalism, subsidence, fire, flood or escape of water. Not only do some policies protect against these disasters, but some even provide cover for contents if you move house and find that the removal contractors lost or damaged the items. The catch to this is that the removal contractors must have packed the items themselves and transported them themselves in order for you to receive reimbursement for damage or loss.

The type of home equipment covered will vary depending on the insurer, but most providers cover games consoles, audio equipment, televisions, video or DVD players and recorders, as well as computer equipment including laptops, games and hardware. If you run a home business, contents insurance may also cover all the necessary items needed to run your businesses including photocopiers, fax machines, word-processing equipment, keyboards, computers, printers and visual display units, desktop publishing units and telecommunications equipment.

Very often sports equipment such as golf clubs, photographic equipment for photographers and instruments for orchestral musicians are not covered under a typical contents insurance policy. However, you may buy cover for these situations in addition to your original contents insurance policy. If you need specialised contents insurance for your home equipment, you may want to find an insurance company who offers these policies at a discounted rate when bundled with a traditional contents insurance policy.

Because there are so many items that you may have in your home ranging from everyday items to extremely rare antiques, it is important that you read your policy document thoroughly so that you understand what is covered and what is not covered by the insurer. You may be able to buy accidental cover for situations such as spilling wine on a carpet or your toddler knocking a can of paint onto your keyboard. In some instances, accidental cover is not available for portable items like laptops, but it will cover other parts of computer equipment, DVD players, televisions and video game consoles. Similarly, if you need to take equipment away from your home temporarily, some insurance companies will cover you for up to a certain percentage of the sum insured on the items themselves.