What does household insurance cover?
A contents insurance covers all items (belongings) that are not fixed to your house. These are all items that you can take with you when you move house. This can include items such as curtains, furniture and jewellery. Do you have click laminate and can you take it with you? Then this also falls under the contents insurance. Is your floor nailed or glued down? Then this floor is not covered by the contents insurance. Also items around your house (garden furniture) are usually included in the contents insurance.
When does home insurance cover damage?
A contents insurance covers damage from various causes. Compensation is not only given if the damage is not attributable to you. Your household contents are insured for fire damage, storm damage, water damage, burglary/theft damage and damage caused by fallen trees/broken branches.
Do not under- or over-insure your household effects. In case of underinsurance, your insurer will pay less than the value of your possessions. Overinsurance means that you insure your possessions for a higher amount than their value. This way, you will pay too much for your insurance.
In what cases does home contents insurance pay out?
Nowadays, insurers offer several types of household insurance. What you will be reimbursed for therefore depends on which insurance policy you have taken out. A fire insurance only compensates damage that is the result of fire. Often you can add other risks to the same package: for example burglary.
There are different kinds of household insurances: the comprehensive insurance, the extra comprehensive insurance and the all-risk insurance. With a comprehensive insurance, everything will be compensated for damage caused by the causes mentioned under paragraph two: fire damage, storm damage and so on.
The extra comprehensive insurance offers additional coverage to the comprehensive insurance. This may include damage caused by precipitation entering your home via the public road/first floor.
If you take out All-Risk insurance, you are insured for virtually all types of damage. The only thing that is definitively excluded, is damage caused by natural disasters (think of hurricanes or breached dykes), war damage and nuclear disasters (molest). Why are these categories excluded from any cover? Imagine that an entire city, in which many residents have contents insurance, is demolished by a hurricane. This situation does not work for insurers: they would go bankrupt due to this disaster.
And do you want to insure valuable works of art? Then it is wise to check with your insurer whether they are covered by the contents insurance. It may be that works of art are not covered or are only insured up to a certain amount. In that case, you can opt for additional insurance.
In which cases is contents insurance useful?
If you own a house or live in a flat, it is wise to take out contents insurance. Do you not do this and do you get unexpected damage to your belongings? Then the costs are for you. This may not be a problem if your hoover breaks down. But if you lose your entire contents, due to fire damage, it will already be considerably more expensive. Think carefully about whether or not to take out home contents insurance.
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