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.

I have contents insurance but having done the sums I’m probably not going to renew.

A small theft eg bike or laptop - has such a big excess anyway it’s hardly worth it.

And if I suffered a catastrophic disaster like my house burning down I would have enough savings to get the basics, use interest free credit for stuff like sofa and rebuild my possessions slowly as and when I need them. I might find that I don’t need quite so much of the stuff I have!

When I lived in rented accommodation - all I had were clothes, electronics and bedding and some kitchen ware.

Not everyone owns their own 10 bed mansion filled with expensive furniture and white goods.

But for others who can easily afford to replace everything quickly eg have liquid savings, they make a judgement on whether they would rather take out insurance or take the risk of needing to pay out if the worst happens.

I really don't buy that argument when it comes to home insurance.

We could afford to replace the contents of our home many times over, tomorrow, paying with cash in the bank. But why would we want to do that?

We have full accidental damage cover for up to £100,000 of contents for less than £140 per year, including expensive watches, jewellery and bicycles out of the home.

If it was £1,500 per year or more I can just about start to think along the lines of 'self insure', but at

And not everyone in rented has bugger all property. Many properties are rented unfurnished, so tenants will have just as much stuff to replace as owner occupiers.

Why would I want to get a load of stuff on credit when my insurance, at about £9 a month, would replace it all? Buying furniture for a whole house on credit would cost way more than £9 a month.

I understand not being able to afford it, but not getting insurance if you can afford it does seem strange to me. But we're all different, and it doesn't affect me, so horses for courses and all that!

I think it all depends on your personal circumstances of your life.

At the moment we are building up our savings again after having young dc (childcare costs are much less now and we are both back in fulltime work).

In the last 5 years we had young dc (had to pay nursery costs and also had time off work) and moved cities (didn't want to pay removalists costs so got rid of most belongings which weren't of much value to begin with).

We are not attached to much in our home.

Most is 2nd hand or quite old (for example our phones are 4-5 years old and we have one laptop shared between as all that is 4 years old. Furniture, TVs are all 2nd hand/free and need upgrading in the next couple of years.

We haven't collected many kitchen appliances either as not (kettle, toaster, fridge, and basic crockery, cutlery, pans) as we don't cook very exciting meals. Never bothered to get a microwave even.

We don't have many books, cds or ornaments at all. The dcs have accumulated quite a bit but too be honest that needs clearing out at this stage in time.

Don't have exciting wardrobes as either wear uniforms or casual clothes for work.

Not much jewellery. Everything is sentimental so wouldn't replace. Weddings rings are worn all the time and were simple and cheap.

So once we have banked enough savings we will start buying replacements and upgrading everything and that is when contents insurance would become useful. And we aren't too motivated to do so at this stage either as very busy with work and the dc and don't want to spend weekends out buying furniture.

At this stage if we lost everything in some ways it would be nice to go out and buy/replace everything.... forced upgrading.

I feel sorry for anyone that can’t afford insurance.

I know several people who’s houses have flooded ( internal pipes) plus one who’s house caught fire. The family without insurance (fire) lived in a tent in the garden.

Why do people think building cover is needed but not contents? Is it a mortgage thing?

My kitchen gadgets alone are over 10k, it’s taken a lifetime to collect everything. I would never risk all that for £10-20 a month.

I’ve been on the bones of my arse before. I’ve had bugger all and never been in credit.
I always had home insurance.

@Tapas Nobody is telling anyone to get their sofa or settee from freecycle at all, or being disrespectful to those that go through a fire. They’re just saying what they themselves would do.

I don't have contents insurance and I have a professional qualification in risk management (to all the posters who mentioned ignorance). Everything I (and the children) have would probably cost under 2to 3K to replace, we are not materialistic and don't have a lot of stuff.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince Sorry that happened to you. Do you mind me asking what caused it? (as it's a worry this could happen)

This happened to my neighbours. No contents insurance, sadly they were broken into, bikes, TVs, laptops gone, and they set up a gofundme page!! They had raised about £2000! I refused to donate, as awful as that is.

We don’t have it. Would always get travel insurance though as that could run into hundreds of thousands if caught poorly somewhere like USA. Contents insurance? Meh. The chances of everything going are super small. I’m a SAHM so rarely out of the house to be burgled and we have fire alarms. Just don’t see that happening. Plus we have the cash to replace if the statistically unlikely ever happened.

For those saying it's 5/month, do you just go with the cheapest on a comparison site??

We always did, cos I'd never claimed and it was cheap... until I claimed - broken laptop.

It was a nightmare. There was 3 separate companies involved - the company I was insured with turned out to just be a call centre. There was a claims company and an assesment company, who basically refused to speak to each other, and when they did, they made stuff up 😡 I had a call early one morning shouting at me for destroying the laptop. The laptop which was in front of me, the other company had said no one wanted to inspect it (they already had the Apple report in its condition). I dread to think what would have happened if it had been a serious claim in an already horrendous situation.

Now I'm insured through my bank, who assure me they deal with any claim internally.

I didn't have contents insurance for years, but when I went through a real bad stage of anxiety I panicked and decided I really needed it. My house burnt down 5 weeks later.

@dragonway I used to think that having fire alarms somehow protected us from the effects of a fire. Turns out they save people, but the house keeps burning until the fire brigade turn up. Given that fire workers are often on call and have to go from home to the station first, this can take quite a while whilst your house burns in front of you.

A pp why are some posters so concerned with other people’s lives and whether they have insurance. I suppose it’s such a frightening and awful thing to go through that we feel scared just thinking about the situation you could find yourselves in. But I respect that ultimately it’s not my business.

The tumble dryer in the garage caught fire. DH had his motorbikes in there. So it happened in a second. It was horrific. By the time l got out, the neighbours had phoned the fire brigade.

It took 6 minutes for them to arrive. The longest 6 minutes of my life.

By the time they arrived all the bottom storey was on fire. In the room where of been sitting, the pu window frames were melted. Every single item in the house was written off, as it was all smoke damaged. We had to do an inventory for the insurance company. It was 12 pages of Excel.

It was possibly one of the most horrific experiences of my life. Everything was destroyed.

I just cannot believe the complacency of people on here. It maybe difficult to grasp the concept of losing everything, which is why people don’t think they need insurance.

The whole thing was just awful, and the only light in the whole thing was the insurance. People have no concept of what losing every thing means.

Pictures, books, Xmas decorations, rugs, toys, cushions, plants, craft stuff, hair bobbles, stationery, toasters, kitchen scales, bathroom scales, waste paper bins, lampshades, door mats, staplers, glasses. I could go on..

The insurance company were fantastic. So dangerous not to have insurance. We had to pay more for 5 years on contents insurance. But it was worth every bloody penny.

There are always things on freecycle and the selling sites Brieandchilli. I furnished the entire house in a week and would do so again.

The rebranding if gambling as “insurance” is now so entrenched in our mindset that it is seen as irresponsible not to engage with it. If you said to yourself “I bet a couple of hundred pounds a year that my house will burn down/flood/be burgled, and so does everyone I know”. People might look at things differently. If you added that no one among your family/friends had ever had their house burnt down/whatever, but you were all still betting every year for decades, you might wonder....is it worth it?

And we’re not particularly wealthy, and we don’t have lots of stuff. Just your average 3 bed semi. Dh always used to claim we didn’t need contents insurance as we didn’t have much stuff and it would be easy to replace.

Fortunately l ignored him

NoWordForFluffy

Whereabouts in the country are you that 75K of contents costs £100 per year? That same company is significantly more expensive in my postcode.

To say "It's only £5 a month blah blah" shows that despite all the news reports and stories on here some people still don't understand that £5 a month is more than others can afford

Yes I think contents insurance often goes by the wayside when money is very tight. Contents insurance is a discretionary spend you are are struggling to feed a family or heat a home.

As a home owner I wouldn't want to be without building's insurance (which also covers my fitments, fittings, carpets in the event of flood etc).

Contents insurance has more alternatives and if I had no money would be a lower priority than feeding my family because without money today's real problem will always take priority over tomorrow's hypothetical problem. It has to.

I'm really surprised at the estimates of 50K to 100K contents value in this thread, I had a figure in my head of at 30K covering most home, based on what insurance companies have told me in the past. The last time I did an inventory, I don't think it go much past 20K. But that was long ago.

Whatever the figure, I could afford to replace out of savings, so in that sense I don't think I need it. But I do have it, purely for the add-on legal cover, which I figure could be protecting me against a much bigger loss, however unlikely.

Also, it only costs £100 a year, so it's not much of an economy to get rid of it.

I was going go off and do a new inventory now, but after a quick check it turns out my cover is 50K, not the 30K I thought.

Zbag; you were lucky. I hope the insurance company weren't too suspicious though-claiming 5 weeks after you took the policy out!

NW coast with 8 years' no claims.

It used to be about £80, but has gone up over the years!

I have always had home contents insurance, despite not working or working only part-time and living on child maintenance, child tax credit and benefit and housing benefit. My current policy is £4.86 a month. I shop around every year for it.

NW coast with 8 years' no claims

That may explain it. I've never made a contents claim in 30yrs and its not a high crime area but the cost of contents insurance here is prohibitive for many people. Other major cities tend to be expensive for insurance as well. Its definitely a luxury product if you are on low incomes rather than a basic essential.