to be agog that my friends have no contents insurance

[AdmiralButterfly]

I mean it is none of my business but it came up in conversation. They have buildings insurance but not contents. So if they were burgled they would get nothing and if the house burned down they would not have anything to cover clothes and furniture etc. I am totally agog. They have all the normal laptops and TVs etc and all the usual burglar able things - jewellery, musical instruments, a bit of silverware.

Has anyone ever had to claim on the landlords building insurance when they owned a flat? Did things get resolved quickly and did it also cover any accommodation if you had to move out?

I was really confused as to where the lines were drawn when I owned a flat and what the landlords insurance would cover for me in the event of an issue.

I ended up with really expansive, all singing all dancing, contents insurance because my ex had an eyewatering amount of expensive electrical equipment and he insisted on it. However when I cam to need it just after he left it was amazing service. A slow leak had been seeping into the wall, skirting, and carpet of the room next door. This was not noticed for ages because of the furniture in the room. We needed work to the plumbing done, new carpets, and replacement of the entire wall between the bathroom and the spare room including redecoration. I had to leave the house with my 6 month old baby for nearly 2 weeks and was put up in a nearby hotel. So all these costs including the accommodation was covered by the insurance and I think in total it was nearly 7k, for a tiny pinhole leak!

Now if I hadn't had the insurance then I assume the work to the wall would have been covered by the landlord? But what about the other costs?

I own a house now and have combined insurance, would always make sure i'm covered after my past experience.

This is stressing me out just thinking about it. We don't have anything really fancy but it would cost a lot to kit out my whole house again.

Our neighbor’s home burned down. She was insured and rebuilt the house. She said it was the best thing to happen to her.

Insurance companies do NOT write off stuff with minimal smoke damage. They send it away and get it cleaned and try to make you have it back. We had a never ending argument with them about 2 sofas which were clearly still damaged.

We won in the end, but they want to keep costs as low as possible so want you to keep the original stuff

@Missingstreetlife Never have insurance you don't need. Have a fund, pay into it instead. Buildings insurance, car and travel(medical) are essential, all the others are not if you save premiums over time you will be better off.

The poster up thread whose contents insurers paid her out £75K following a fire. Please explain to me how she would have been better off saving her premiums in a fund. Even if she put away £20 a month, after 30 years she would have had just £7200 in her fund, plus the interest??

And what if disaster strikes 2 months after you started to save the money into your fund?

Contents insurance covers loose items such as furniture and possessions. Carpets, fittings etc come under buildings insurance. Or at least, that is what my insurer has explicitly stated in their terms (if you turned your house upside down, what would fall to the ceilings?).

As it happens I do have contents insurance, but my furniture and possessions (most of which are 2nd hand) don't come to more than a few thousand. Essential furniture and possessions much less than that. So I can understand that for some people it may be quite reasonable not to pay for contents insurance.

I think unless you’ve lived through such a catastrophic event you’ll never really understand how much easier it is to have something in place to help you through it. Yes I could have replaced things in my home to make it habitable for a few grand on eBay or facebay or wherever, but when you’re grieving for losing everything you own, the whole life you’ve built up over the years, the pets you’ve lost(we lost both of our dogs in the fire) the last thing you want is to searching round for a bargain. It’s only once you sit and itemise EVERY item in your home you realise how much it all adds up. Get insurance or don’t, I just hope no one is put in a position where they need to claim.

Yeah, that’s what they said to us, about turning a house upside down. And weirdly l think that meant contents covered taps but not bath and sink as they were under household.

@BabyNoNaps but I'm not sure that is correct, Kitchens, boilers, electrics and sanitaryware wouldn't fall to the ceiling but how can they be covered by the landlords building insurance when they have no control over what the leaseholder is installing? One flat may have the cheapest IKEA kitchen and another some incredibly expensive mahogany and granite jobby.

I'm saving up to move house, I'm a council tenant, I've made a list of what I want new & what it will cost. I've just added it all up & it comes to nearly £9k & that's not for everything, just what I want to replace. That's why I have contents insurance, mine is fairly basic, covering £50k contents & accidental damage, costs me £4 a week with the council, I pay it with my rent, it gives me peace of mind.

theemoji Maybe insurers are stricter now? Or the people who owned the goods and fought the insurers won like you? But it is true that I bought smoke damaged goods at auction that had minimal damage. If I had had insurance I would have fought for them to be replaced. But if I had not I would have carried on using them.

silvercuckoo

"my wardrobe is £200 max"

So you don't have a warm coat or jacket, a scarf, a hat, gloves? what about shoes, sandals, boots, trainers, socks, underwear, jumpers, a going out outfit, swimming stuff, exercise stuff, cycling stuff, dressing gown, pyjamas, warm jumpers or sweatshirts. Do you wear the same clothes for winter as you do for summer? Do you sit around in the nuddy while your couple of jeans and t shirts are in the wash?

Even if you bought everything at primark, in a sale, I think you would end up spending more than £200 . ( and would have to replace a lot of it in a month or so when it fell to pieces)

I appreciate you don't want to get contents insurance, but make sure you are properly informed about the value of the objects you do possess. Spend half an hour going from room to room itemising exactly what you do have. It is probably more than you think.

I don't have contents insurance. Mainly because the bastard insurance companies never actually pay out

I think people are being deliberately obtuse when they are posting that they don't have anything expensive to insure.

It's not about expensive stuff. It's about the cost of replacing EVERYTHING in your house in an emergency. Mugs, cutlery, curtains, laundry basket, hairbrushes, shoes, toiletries, kids' toys, lamps, pictures, books - everything.

And as others have said the last thing you want to be doing after a fire or a house explosion is scrabbling around on gumtree for a second hand dinner set because you were too short sighted to organise insurance.

@JustMe81 well put. I remember DH and I walking round a tiling place choosing our “new” en-suite. People who haven’t been through this might think ooh lucky them, a brand new bathroom for free. Truth is I think that was one of the most miserable and lowest points we had. Feelings akin to a bereavement (of which ive had several). But it’s nigh on impossible to grasp the enormity of it unless you’ve been there. Having no choice but to quickly go round all the charity shops when in the midst of the chaos, hoping they’ve got some bargains, is unimaginable.

replacing my wardrobe (m&s basic office wear and a couple of jeans and tshirts) is £200 max

I've just been shopping on this brief. I chose basic/cheapest I could find in each category at M&S:
2 x pairs black work trousers: £30
3 x round neck tshirts (3for2 offer): £9
1 x black round neck jumper: £12.50
1 x black cardigan: £17.50
2 x pairs blue jeans: £30
10 x black knickers multipacks: £14
10 x black ankle socks multipacks: £5
2 x plain white bras multipack: £12
2 x black/nude bras multipack: £16
2 x pyjama sets: £32
1 x pair black ballerina pumps: £15
1 x pair casual basic trainers: £19.50

TOTAL £212.50.

It's a pretty miserable wardrobe to be stuck with. You'll be washing your clothes every couple of days to make do as most of it is doubling up for work and leisure, so they'll wear out sooner as well.
I haven't counted a coat, or any warm winter clothing etc.

@BabyNoNaps my contents claim was for basically everything that wasn’t screwed down. So all fittings, including the taps etc was paid for my buildings insurance. Carpets, curtains, light fittings, fitted wardrobes were all done on the contents insurance. We were allocated a building firm, who pretty much said if you go here and choose your bathroom and kitchen, here to choose your wallpaper etc etc we can get trade rates and make it work so you get what you want. The difficult part of that is you’re not allocated a set cost for the kitchen and bathroom so you try to choose what you want without it being too expensive because no one will tell you how much you’re “allowed” Wallpaper and tiles and flooring we were given an up to price guide.

That should say fitted wardrobes were claimed for on building insurance not contents.

@LivingDeadGirlUK

I'm starting to wonder now too! I live in my own home so maybe that's the difference? The insurance I have used the phrase "for anything that would fall to the ceiling if you turned the house upside down" to describe what contents insurance is needed for, and fittings such as bathroom, kitchen, lights and carpets were all under buildings insurance. Maybe I am mistaken though, as I have both types of insurance I wasn't too fussed on the distinction!

@passthecherrycoke and
@PettyContractor

I definitely had to make a claim on my contents insurance for my neighbour's contents that were damaged after the pipe burst in my flat. I am not confusing the two types. Their contents that were damaged were covered by my contents insurance. A separate claim was made on the building insurance policy for the damage to the floors and ceiling. This was a separate policy to my own contents, which was paid for within each flat's service charge.

Lemons1571 yeah we were the same. We’d been in our house for 2 years, spent ages decorating it all ourselves, picking out wallpaper, carpets etc. Replacing everything after our fire was horrible. Couldn’t always get the same stuff again (or didn’t want to, for example we never wanted to use the bedding again, even though it washed okay).

The smoke damage - only our kitchen was fire damaged. We lost all of our white goods and TVs etc because they were smoke damaged. Same with soft furnishings, mattresses, carpets, curtains etc all smoke damaged. The whole place needed redecorating. I’d say we lost maybe half our furniture. The more expensive stuff was cleaned, the cheap stuff couldn’t be.

@Lemons1571 exactly that! I like decorating, but I hated trying to redo the whole house from scratch. All you want is to turn back time, not walk round shop after shop trying to choose everything all over again. It was the most miserable thing I’ve ever experienced and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

@BabyNoNaps I think the reason I'm asking is that it seems there might be a big difference to what is covered by building insurance when you are the owner of an apartment and the owner of a house. I have seen people on this thread say they have not got contents insurance because there is building insurance but my understanding was that this did not cover the kitchen, plumbing etc and those are quite large costs. It seems a bit of a minefield!

viques Yes some people really are that poor. I am better off now but there have been times in the past when my wardrobe would have been - multi pack of pants from ASDA x2 - £18

• 2 cheap bras - £12
• cheap socks - £12
• coat - £35
• gloves £2
• 2 pairs of trousers - £25
• pair of shoes - £25
• 3 t shirts - £15
• 1 blouse - £15
• 1 top - £15
• 1 jumper - £20
• 1 cardigan - £15

Total of £228 and I would have been wearing some of it if something had happened. I suspect a lot of people do underestimate what their things would cost to replace, but some people genuinely have very little.

We don't - we live in a flat and therefore have buildings insurance through the management company. For us, it was a question of assessing the risk and, ultimately, we were happy that the risk was low enough for us not to bother. Yes, something could happen but the chances are pretty minimal

We've claimed twice living in flats, all because of other people's mistakes- leaving a bath running,faulty washing machine. I would think it's even more important when you live in a flat as you usually have people on all sides of you.

Don't forget it's not the value of single items and if they are expensive or not,it's buying everything all at once AND decorating,re carpeting etc if walls and floors are damaged.