To consider getting rid of my contents insurance

[ZeroMinusZero]

It's my choice of course, so it doesn't really matter whether it's unreasonable or not, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who can think of a reason why I should have it. I have a fairly normal flat with fairly normal stuff in it (TV, computer etc) but nothing worth above about £300. My insurance has an excess of £100 so I would only ever claim if the TV or computer broke - which they might not. I live in a very low crime area and can't see a burglar ever targeting this flat as it's right on a main road and hard to get into.

Am I missing something?

All your clothes and shoes
All your suitcases, clothes hangers
All your bedding
All your curtains/blinds
All your carpets
All your books
All your CDs/DVDs
All your kitchen equipment (as well as the kitchen cupboards)
All your cleaning things like your vacuum cleaner, iron, ironing board
All your electrical things - hairdryer, straighteners, TV, DVD player, stereo
All your jewellery
All your ornaments, pictures, picture frames
All your furniture

If you can afford to replace all of these immediately, then YANBU to not insure yourself.

I doubt it, though ...

I'll tell you a little story about needing contents insurance.

One year my uncle's bath cracked, so he had to have a new bath and shower put in. He didn't sign off the work because he was not 100% sure that the refit had been done correctly. Fast forward a year and the year old electric power shower starts a fire in his upstairs bathroom. It was contained in the bathroom but the smoke was so bad that they had to have the WHOLE house redecorated - new kitchen, furniture, practically everything in the house was unsalvageable. If they had not had contents insurance the bill to them would have run into the tens of thousands if not more.

Another one:

My friend owns a property but lives in work accom. The house was empty. A pipe burst upstairs and flooded the upstairs. As no-one was checking on the property by the time she got home the ceiling in the lounge and kitchen downstairs had also collapsed. Their insurance didn't pay out because they were stupid enough not to inform their insurers that the property was empty. They ended up paying out over 70k in repairs and other things that would have been covered by contents insurance.

I now have the best buildings and contents that I can afford. I would rather pay £350 per year than over 100k in repairs.

I have never considered having house insurance for claiming small things like a tv or a computer. It's for major disasters.

My mum has a leak inside a wall, from a pipe. By the time it showed through the wall there was a lot of damage.

She was out of her house for over a year. Her insurance paid for her to stay in a hotel and then in a rented flat. And if course for everything to be fixed. The electricity bill for the huge dryer thingys to dry the place out came to a couple of thousand.

Read the policy carefully, but for our policy the part we didn't want (and the more expensive part) was contents accidental damage cover. So we're still covered for things like fire & theft, just not spilling wine on the sofa.

We woke up one morning to find that the mains water pipe into the house had broken and flooded the house with clean water to a depth of 2 inches.

We lost very little, just some books that has been on the floor. However, we did need to hire dehumidifiers, the carpets were taken away, dried and then professionally relaid with new underlay, the curtains needed professionally cleaning and restitching (the colour stained the lining badly for the bottom 12 inches and then they shrunk), the kickboards in the kitchen blew and needed replacing and the skirting board throughout needed repainting. All of this came under our contents insurance. I think that the only bit covered by the building insurance was the initial emergency plumber who switched off the water.

The insurance company thanked us for making such a reasonable claim. The water was clean so nothing was contaminated with sewage. It still took weeks and several hundred pounds to sort out.

We just set up contents Insurance it is just under £8 per month. We have no high cost items at all. But with the floods in our area a few months ago we thought we couldn't afford to pay for everything again.

If interest rates were higher and you could save something meaningful with the money (so that after a few years you would have a 'buffer' to replace most-needed things) then it would be a less risky gamble.

As it is, unless you have massive savings, I'd say you're getting your money's worth from the insurance - even if you're low risk.

I dont have contents insurance, never had. I dont worry about burglars (no back windows/ not on ground floor/ 3 doors, 1 massive and bolted)

but I do sometimes worry about fire- I wish we could just get cover for that.

It would cost a lot to replace EVERYTHING but would that be more than insurance premiums over a lifetime- I think not.

My house caught fire. It was caused by some prick about 5 levels down a chain of sub-contractors doing some work we'd had no choice in. There is nothing I could have done to stop it although there was plenty he could have done, starting with using a fucking heat pad when soldering. I cannot tell you the peace of mind I had as I was sitting outside on my front lawn waiting for the fire brigade to arrive (DS already safely with neighbours) and I realised that now we were safe NOTHING else mattered as we were covered by insurance.

So in summary, not worth it

My friend didn't have contents insurance - had a house fire - they not only had to replace all their belongings. Clothes beds etc but carpets, fully redecorate - clean before the building insurance people would look at the damage etc. it was pretty hard for them. Bassically all they could get done under the building insurance was to make the damaged ceiling safe again. That was it.

My brothers house went up in flames last year - DB working away DSIL escaped by throwing the 2 children out of the bedroom window ages 5 and 3. All they had left in the world was the pjs they got out of the house in not in even a pair of shoes. Cause of fire 18 month old fridge freezer. Destroyed their home and all their possesions. Everything, gone.

Insurance covered rebuild of house, replaceament of house contents, renting another home for the duration of the rebuild and also essential contents of the rented house so they could live ie beds, washing machine, sofa etc.

I agree with the comment it is a gamble you never ever want to win.

We once had a gas leak caused by a faulty oven. When we moved in I bought everything from new, about a year later our oven when caput (seperate over and hob) I was cooking buns and suddenly it sparked and massive blooms of black billowing smoke started to pour out of it. I got ds outside straight away cut the power to the house and then inspected it. We could find nothing wrong, the power was left off to it till we could buy a new one (it was electric).
One day, 2 weeks later I came in an could smell gas really badly, I had thought on other occasions over that time I could but thought I was imagining it, this time there was no denying it. Again I sent ds straight outside, called emergency gas number and exited the house myself.
When the gas man arrived he told us we had been incredibly luck not to be blow up, or the house to blow while we were out. If it had we would have lost every single thing, as would our adjoining neighbours, and that was caused by a relatively new item.

I pay £2.50 a week it is worth it just for peace of mind

If you've never had to do an insurance claim before it is very easy to underestimate the cost of everything you own. Most people mentally tot up the 'big ticket' items (TV, computer, washing machine etc) and figure that will be most of it, but in a total loss scenario it's all the other stuff you've accumulated over the years which adds onto the cost - even if you buy everything dead cheap the amount it would cost to replace things like clothes, cutlery, cooking stuff, bed linen, buying paint etc is eyewatering. You're looking at thousands before you even start replacing 'nice stuff' like jewellery, books, DVDs etc.

I gamble quite a bit, I also have a reasonable grasp of statistics - contents insurance is one of those things that, even if I will never make a claim, falls outside of things I'm prepared to take a chance on.

My friend didn't have contents insurance - had a house fire - they not only had to replace all their belongings. Clothes beds etc but carpets, fully redecorate - clean before the building insurance people would look at the damage etc. it was pretty hard for them. Bassically all they could get done under the building insurance was to make the damaged ceiling safe again. That was it.

Margeykemp It would cost a lot to replace EVERYTHING but would that be more than insurance premiums over a lifetime- I think not.

Let's say you pay £200 a year insurance which I think is fairly middle market, we pay £120 a year to cover £13k, over a 80 year period your paying out £16000, one house fire could easily right up that much damage in a few minutes.

We have a small house, very little in it really, nothing major of value bit still need 13k cover, many households will have huge amounts more.

I would say its definately worth it.

Some stats=

1.5% of households have a fire every year
43% result in no financial loss
average financial loss is £980, only 8% of fires have a loss of >£1000
of people with insurance only 32% made a claim (high excesses?)
of those who made a claim the average was for £6630

say you pay £15pcm for contents ins, that is £10k over a 60 year adult lifetime, much higher than the average claim and MOST people will never claim so will be £10k better off

Seriously there's a reason why insurance companies (BANKS) make lots of money!
It's from people making decisions based on fear not on the sums.

I know this may sound artifical but it is the things you take for granted that you do not realise the cost. How much would it cost to replace your hairdryer, straightners, make up bag contents. What about your dvd collection, dinner service, the contents of your bathroom, all of your clothes.

We were burgled a couple of days after Christmas, they took all my DS's presents, over 60 PS3 games, memorey (sp) cards, 4 controller pads, jewllery, passports (£240 to replace alone) just some examples. Also they paid for the front door to be replaced and for emergency repairs to the door on the night the burglary happened to ensure we were secure.

Also it is worth mentioning if ou have undervalued the contents of your insurance to save a few pounds on the monthly payments then if you ever do have to claim and it transpires the value of what you are claiming for exceends the amount insured then they can reduce the amount they pay out considerabley (sp).

Such maybe the case, however calculating it the way I did just shows me that it isn't worth the risk, that one fire could write you out completely, and yes over a 60-80 year period if you never claim then you have lost but if you are every put in the situation then it would have been a risk not worth taking.

I haven't had contents insurance for about 10 years. It's very expensive as I'm in inner London, it would be £48 a month even after shopping around, deals, and that would be with a £350 excess. We're low risk for burglary and flooding (first floor). I think if there was a fire I think the money I'd spend on replacing essentials wouldn't be as much as I'd pay out in insurance over the years. I probably wouldn't need to replace everything anyway, things like toys and CDs etc. Also the council will move tenants out after a big fire and redecorate/rehouse (it happened to a neighbour in the next street).

We had a flood last Dec (upstairs neighbour overfilled bath), contents paid for by insurance (wooden flooring etc).

2 major floods Jan and March (caused by faulty pipe/pump in the block of flats).Insurance paid for new carpets, new fitted wardrobes, refurb of sofa's, refurb of wooden furniture PLUS accommodation for 3 people for 3 months whilst the flat was being dried out.

Insurance also paid for the electricity of the dehumidifers and dryers.

Honestly, YABU.

We were so skint last September that we didnt bother to renew our contents insurance.

We saved enough cash for a cheap holiday away in May and at that point I decided that if we could afford a holiday I could afford contents insurance, so I took it out the day before we went.

We went 9 months with no insurance and I did actually spend a little bit of that time worrying about fire more than anything else.

Its not advisable to not have insurance but I understand when money is tight why its an easier option to opt out of than other stuff.

I have a really negative attitude to insurance of all types to be honest afetr working in the industry and seeing the lengths some go to - to ensure they dont have to pay out.

Some people also seem insurance mad and have insurance for every silly thing in life - when actually if they totted up all their premiums they would probably replace the individual items in less than a year.

I would renew if you can but perhaps see if you can cut the cost by playing with removing extras that you feel you dont need from the policy - like deep freezer if you dont have one etc. Also play with your excess and see how that affects the premiums - but be realistic about how you would feel paying that excess should you need to claim.

I was v grateful for mine when the place was flooded because landlord hadn't fixed roof. Needed new mattress, bedding, CDs etc. Shop around for a cheap deal - £100 excess is a lot. Ours is £50 excess with the Coop. Recommended.

Crime with copper and cable theft is known to cause power surges and will destroy anything plugged in if that happened to you. As it did a friend of mine, who lives in a flat.

I can replace the TV and laptop reasonably cheaply.
Where it gets sticky is if you are unfortunate enough to lose everything and you need to replace carpets, furnishings, white goods, beds, clothes, it goes on!
I pay £27 pm buildings and contents wouldn't contemplate cancelling it