Critical money issues- Keeping track of your home insurance cover
There are a few basic problems for policyholders regarding home insurance cover. Some policies are much better than others. Some are just cheap policies and their cover is equally cheap. Some policies are OK as far as they go, but they don’t reflect real values of property or contents very well. Some are even less impressive, very basic No Frills insurance that doesn’t actually even claim to cover much, or do it well.
The fact is that most policyholders run their policies on autopilot, often for years or even decades, without a thought. Many don’t know how to adjust their cover, and some don’t even know how to read their policies, expensive as some of them are. The theory is that just having insurance, any insurance, is all they need to know about the subject.
That theory couldn’t be more wrong, or more expensive, if things go wrong:
- The low-grade/ lousy insurance policies are hopelessly inferior to others on the market.
- The only way to find out if you’ve got a good policy is to compare it with others on the market.
- If someone doesn’t understand their policy, do they have a problem if they need to make a claim? You bet they do.
- If your policy is ten years old, do you need to upgrade? You do.
- Have you, like most normal human beings, bought a lot of stuff that wasn’t in the house when you first took out cover? More than likely.
- Does your policy reflect the true value of your new contents? In a lot of cases, it doesn’t, because the policy hasn’t been upgraded to cover the value of the new things you have in the house.
- Read your policy. Calculate the value of your cover.
- Compare your policy options online. The new online insurers can give you a home and contents insurance quote very quickly, to compare prices.
- Is the cover up to date?
- Does it compare well to other policies?
- Does it reflect your needs?
- Upgrade your existing policy.
- Get a better policy.