Are personal effects covered? UK Home Insurance

Your personal effects are defined as all personal items that you might take out of your home with you. This could be anything that you would wear or you might carry when you are not in your home. You should read your policy carefully to find out what personal effects are covered, and how they are covered, because home insurance is exactly that - insurance for your home, so anything that is not in your home needs to be approved for coverage.

Your insurance policy will feature exclusions related to your personal effects, and these are likely to be very similar to the exclusions that may apply to the section of your contents insurance that covers accidental damage.

So, you'll find that you'll be asked to pay an excess on any claim for personal effects. Cover for certain items such as CDs and records will likely be limited to a certain amount. You should check if mobile phones are insured, and what the highest value for an item is. You may need to get specialist cover for musical instruments and some sports equipment.

An interesting point to note is that your travel insurance policy also covers personal possessions away from the home in what they call 'baggage cover'. Should you lose something, or something is stolen or damaged whilst you are travelling, when you claim you should be prepared for the travel insurance company to ask about how your home contents insurance policy covers your personal effects. If it does, then the travel insurance company will probably ask for a 'contribution' from your home insurance provider.

Bear in mind that you are likely to get a better settlement should something happen to your personal effects if you claim off your home insurance policy. Look out for whether your contents are replaced on a 'new for old' basis on your contents cover, as this will benefit you.

So, does this mean that you are paying for the same cover with two premiums? Well, yes it does actually. With so much insurance cover able to be purchased online, one of the features that consumers may have given up is the flexibility that enables you to choose which part of a policy you actually want to keep, and which parts you don't.

The only way you can get around this, if you have personal effects cover away from your home from your home insurance policy, is to find travel insurance with the smallest amount of baggage cover on your travel insurance. If you shop around, you may find that it is less expensive you buy online insurance policies with duplicate cover than to try to get the exact policies you want from a high street broker.

 

 

 

 

© AskFinancially.com 2008

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