Home contents insurance advice

[makingmiracles]

Just getting quotes for renewal and was looking at articles about the different types ie sum insured and bedroom rated.

Is there a benefit to being sum insured rather that bedroom rated?

How do insurers work, for example if I insured for £150k for example, do they only pay out to the amount it costs to replace or do they pay out the full £150k as that is your sum insured?
For example, if the house was fully destroyed by fire and too dangerous to access would they just pay out the sum insured rather than try to assess the claim amount?

Totally clueless about all this, had insurance yrs but just got me thinking as when I compared this year I could get £100k more cover for slightly less a month than what I’ve been paying the past year!

Anyone had to make a whole house contents claim and can let me know how it worked, what happened?

I always use M&S Premier. Have a look online. I think it's hard to beat. I pay £65 per month for buildings and contents, and I have a lot of contents.

They won't just pay out the total amount without sending a loss adjuster to value your contents. I have no idea how they do this, but they won't just give £150k to someone with £50k of contents.

They'll probably have a good idea from historical data as to how much an average house worth of contents costs, but they might expect receipts or other evidence for big ticket items like beds, sofas, furniture etc so they'll know if the value is Ikea/high street level or higher end.

So do you think it’s better to over value but not nescessarily expect that amount in event of a whole house claim? The industry estimates 30-40% of people are under insured...

And I’ve heard before about receipt etc but how would that even be possible if for example your house ended up on fire, the receipts would be destroyed too!?