Your valuables, by their very description are usually expensive, not to mention often have a sentimental value, but should your home be burgled are you sure your valuables are covered by your home contents insurance?
Valuables can include such as jewellery, watches, artwork, stamp collections and antiques.
These items are generally high value.
With this high value, they are highly attractive to thieves, making them high risk as far as home insurance providers are concerned.
Under a standard home insurance policy, the contents insurance will generally provide insurance cover up to a set amount.
This amount is called the ‘single item limit’.
It’s set at different levels by different providers but on average it will be around £1,500.
With some standard policies valuables are also only allowed up to a certain percentage of the total amount of contents insurance cover you have.
So, some key questions to answer are
‘What is the single item limit on your home contents insurance?‘ and
‘Do you have any single items that exceed this limit?‘
At the very least, any items that exceed this limit will need to be named on your home insurance policy.
If you don’t do this, you will not be covered should you need to make a claim because the item has been stolen, lost or damaged.
You may need to see if you can raise the single item cover limit to cover the high value item or two that you have.
If you have a number of high value items you may better off to consider a High Net Worth insurance policy.
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It’s a good idea to get your valuables professionally valued and remember to repeat the valuation periodically in case they have changed significantly in value.
And don’t forget you may unwittingly be sitting on a fortune through your collection of modern antiques, signed books or early games consoles – ask the question, is your collection junk or worth a fortune?
Whatever you decide to do regarding insurance for your valuables, do make sure you protect them.
It’s a good idea to take a photo of your valuables and make a note of any differentiating features such as engavings or other marks.
It’s also possible to mark them using an ultraviolet pen to help them be traced.Sadly if you do lose valuable items or have them stolen, there’s the emotional loss to deal with but at least if you ensure you have the right insurance cover in place you can replace them.