How to Get the Best Home Contents Insurance

Explaining Contents Coverage & How to Get the Best Home Contents Insurance

After a few years of being a homeowner, a renter, or a condo owner, you have probably gathered quite a few possessions. Think of all the furniture, clothing, appliances, hobby items, and more that you have purchased – not just recently, but since you first moved in and what you continue to use today. The overall value of these items is likely much more than you think it is. Therefore, it is important to give some thought to the coverage for your valuables, no matter where it is you call home.

Your insurance company only knows as much as you have told them. The information that you provide will then be used to customize a protection plan for your contents if they should be damaged or lost entirely in an unexpected event.

What Contents Insurance Is:

Your belongings are your home’s contents. It is everything you own, from your bathroom towels to your vintage leather jacket. You even need to consider items belonging in your garage or shed as well, especially as these can rack up in value.

You may think that your home’s contents could never par up to the overall value of your home but taken altogether your belongings could cost you a great deal to repair or replace if they were damaged or destroyed. Contents insurance may cover your belongings if they are damaged due to:

• A natural disaster, such as overland flooding, a hurricane, or tornado
• Fire
• Power surge
• Water damage from burst pipes
• Incidental loss or damage during transport

Sometimes we forget about the “stuff” that we own without truly thinking about their overall value. The fact of the matter is: it’s a lot! It is vital that you go over all that you own as diligently and as detailed as possible with your provider to ensure that you have the coverage you need.

What to Include in Your Inventory:

When you are listing out your home’s contents to your insurance provider, remember to include all the details. It might be easy to overlook things, especially if they have been sitting around for a while or are generally unused. Consider the following list of items to mention to your provider for an estimate:

• Your clothes, including casual, formal, coats, accessories, activewear, and shoes.
• Your electronics, including computers, TVs, phones (mobile and landline), home systems, video game consoles, and iPads.
• Your appliances, such as your oven, dryer and washer, dishwasher, microwave, and HVAC.
• Your utensils and supplies, like cups, glasses, silverware, utensils, and liquor cabinet.
• Your furniture, such as sofas, chairs, tables, mattresses and frames.
• Your books, including textbooks, office books, fictional books, magazines, and recipe books.
• Your hygiene products, such as razors, dryers, cleaning supplies, and other bathroom contents like the curtains, bath mats, and scale.

Your situation is your own, so there may be some items missed on this list that you would like to include. Consider going through your list room-by-room to ensure that everything is accurate and up-to-date. Then, make an overall estimate for the value of these items to calculate the replacement cost.

The Best Home Contents Insurance:

The “best” home contents insurance is the insurance policy that is right for you and fits within your budget. You will want to ensure that your contents are insured for their full replacement value. There may also be a pre-determined limit, which generally ranges around 30% of the total cost to rebuild your property as it stands. A $600,000 rebuild cost may mean that your contents insurance coverage sits at around $180,000.

In the case of most tenant and/or condo insurance policies, your contents coverage limit will be determined without any calculation (as there is no value for the overall “home.”) You should determine a sensible amount of coverage individually, based on all that you own.

A broker can help you to get the best home contents insurance at a price that is right for you. Call Excalibur Insurance Group today to discuss your needs.

Contents Insurance Exceptions:

It is a good idea to determine what limits your home contents insurance includes so that you know exactly what you have coverage for. Depending on your provider, you may have certain limits for high-value items, such as jewellery, collectibles, watches, furs, heirlooms, etc.

In some situations, you may be required to purchase what is known as a jewellery “rider” or a home contents insurance extension that will increase your premiums by a slight amount to include coverage for special items. Ask your broker to go over any special limits your policy may include. If you use your expensive, luxury bicycle everyday, the limits might not be to your liking and you might consider adding an endorsement at this point.

A last thing to note is that your contents are covered by your home insurance or renter’s/condo – even if they are inside your car. As an example, if someone broke into your car and stolen your CDs and expensive winter jacket, this would be filed as a claim under your home contents insurance and not your car insurance. If damage was done to your car during this break-in, you could file a separate claim for repairs to your vehicle.