How to calculate the value of your home contents

The average price paid for home insurance has fallen to its lowest levels in at least a decade, according to the Association of British Insurers (Joe Giddens/PA) (PA Archive)

If you have recently moved into a beautiful new home it’s time to consider home insurance. Home insurance is one of those things that shouldn’t be forgotten; you never know when an accident or break in can occur and whilst these incidents are heartbreaking, they are much easier to manage when you have the correct home insurance in place.

In order to organise home insurance you will need to accurately calculate the value of your belongings. This isn’t the simplest of tasks, so here’s a quick guide to get you through the process.

In order to calculate the value of your home contents you will need a pen and paper. First, we recommend that you list out each room in your home – underneath each room, you should write a list of all of the valuable items that the room contains. Do this for each room in turn. We then recommend that you sit down and write the value of each object next to it on your list. Many objects can be bundled together with one value, for example clothes or DVDs.

A great tip at this stage is to get a second opinion. Ask your partner or a close friend to walk through the house and compile his or her own list. Once they’ve done this, you can see how close the two values are and amend your list accordingly. If you are unsure about the value of certain objects then you can search on the Internet. Ebay or Amazon are both great sites to use in order to see how much items cost on the market. Now you have a list of values for each of your belongings, it’s time to find an insurance broker. There are many insurance brokers working in the UK, but we recommend that you work with a well-established company whom you can trust. Different insurance companies will offer a varied range of insurance services but the most common are home insurance and contents insurance. The benefit to setting up home insurance cover is that it will cover your building against damage. Most home insurance providers will also include contents insurance as part of the home insurance policy. Home insurance will cover damage to walls, roofs and patios when caused by disasters such as smoke, fire or flooding. Contents Insurance alone will not cover damage to your building. The purpose of contents insurance is to insure against damage or theft to any belongings that you own inside your house. Some content insurance providers will also insure against accidental damage.

Of course, you may find that these two varieties of home insurance won’t fulfil all of your needs. This may be the case if you have special value objects such as a bicycle or top of the range computer. If this is the case you should look for specific additional insurance cover such as cycle cover, which will insure against damage or theft of your bicycle. Once you have your home and contents insurance set up, store all insurance documents carefully and safely. It is also worth keeping your original evaluation lists for your personal records. At regular intervals check these lists to make sure that your cover is still accurate. Whenever you make a new and valuable purchase you should also let your insurance company know so that they can adjust your insurance levels whenever necessary.