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.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince it wasn’t DCP “cleaning” your stuff was it? We had a big run in with them.

Although, replacing a horse would cost considerably less than replacing the entire contents of a 4 bedroom house (unless it was a racing thoroughbred )

I have no idea what my contents insurance costs but I'm certain it's worth it to insulate myself from the horror of an incident.

Of course everyone's needs are different but I can't imagine, unless living in poverty, why you wouldn't.

Maybe they should. But perhaps they DO have money stashed away to cover replacing things.

We didn't have contents insurance for the first 15 years or so. We really did not own many items of much value. It was not possible to take out contents insurance for, say, £2k worth of stuff. Insurers all had a much higher minimum, so it didn't seem like good value. Instead we just put the money aside.

It's true that many items are essential and would have to be bought new immediately. But many other things we would be quite willing to wait and get at boot sales etc, which is where we'd bought most of our possessions in the first place.

Just thanking OP for this original post really.

I've upped my contents policy level from £23K to 35K, though I think all my stuff may be nearer £40K.

In my 20s and 30s I had either no insurance or very minimal. Was mostly sharing flats and had the minimum of possessions, a few bin liners of clothes basically!.

But its amazing how over my 40s and 50s things have added up now living in a flat. The furniture, the white goods, all the kitchen stuff, the clothes, the shoes, the bedding, the technology (not around then), and of course the books.

Really sad to hear of those who have had the terrible events leading for their need to claim though. V sobering reading