Home Contents Insurance
The Home Contents Insurance policy is what tenants purchase to protect their assets and themselves if a personal liability claim is brought against them. This policy provides valuable cover whether you are renting a home, apartment, or house.
What is covered on a Home Contents Policy?
Personal Property: Your personal property is everything you brought with you to the residence you are renting. Your furniture, clothing, small appliances, electronics, jewellery, and art are all considered personal property. This insurance pays to repair or replace any or all of your personal property in the event it is damaged or destroyed due to a covered peril or risk. Although there is cover for jewellery and other expensive items, the cover is typically limited and may not be sufficient to cover your loss. In cases where there are high-value items, additional insurance can be purchased to make certain limits are sufficient.
Personal Liability: Personal liability protects you financially if a third party (visitor) is injured on or in the property you are renting.
Additional Home Contents Insurance coverages: Most insurers offer optional cover that may be required to meet your individual needs:
- Loss of Use: Loss of use is triggered if you must temporarily live elsewhere while your rented property is under repair and unavailable.
- Fatal Accident: This cover is available if you or a family member passes away due to an accident caused by fire or burglary.
- Storage Off-Premise: This cover pays if you must store your furniture away from your primary residence for up to 30 days.
- Sports Equipment Cover: Provides worldwide cover for specialty sports equipment while you are traveling.
For residents living in Hong Kong, it’s important to know that your landlord’s insurance will not cover your personal property or personal liability and that you can easily transfer these risks to an insurance company for a very affordable price. For complete product details and pricing, speak to your Trusted Union insurance adviser about your home contents insurance risks to get the information you need to make a smart and informed decision
Home Contents Insurance Faq
What is home content insurance?
If you’re like most people, your home may be one of your most valuable purchases. With such a large investment, it’s a no-brainer to purchase insurance for it. But what about the contents inside your home such as your furniture, clothing, jewelry, and all the other sundry items you have around the house? This miscellaneous property, although maybe not so valuable on its own, can really add up to significant amounts. But you might not notice it since you’ve likely accumulated the items over a number of years.
As with any large investment, you should make sure it’s protected by purchasing home contents insurance. This coverage is usually made available as part of a homeowners insurance policy or a tenant’s insurance policy.
What is covered under home contents insurance?
To put it simply, home contents insurance covers the interior contents of your home. Put another way, it covers your personal property. It’s important to note that there is no hard and fast definition of “personal property”, it’s an all-encompassing term to describe all of the stuff you would usually expect to find in someone’s home.
For example, it would insure: furniture, clothing, bicycle, cooking utensils, etc. To make sure you’re buying enough insurance, we recommend our clients go through a personal property checklist. To do this, go through your home room by room identifying each item and how much it cost. Add those numbers up, and you’ll have a good idea of how much personal property insurance you should buy – it’s usually higher than you think. The caveat here is that it does not insure business property; for that, you would need to purchase a commercial property insurance policy.
That said, there are some exclusions or places where home contents insurance isn’t adequate and would require extra specialized coverages. For example, your fine art, jewelry, and other high-value items may not be adequately covered under your home contents insurance policy. In this case, you should consider purchasing a fine arts endorsement or endorse jewelry coverage specifically on your policy.
That said, there are some exclusions or places where home contents insurance isn’t adequate and would require extra specialized coverages. For example, your fine art, jewelry, and other high-value items may not be adequately covered under your home contents insurance policy. In this case, you should consider purchasing a fine arts endorsement or endorse jewelry coverage specifically on your policy.
Coverage is also available on a global basis. That means if you have your purse stolen while in Europe on vacation, you can claim that on your home contents insurance policy.
How much should home and contents insurance cost?
It’s hard to say. This depends on many factors including the value of your contents and the limit of insurance you choose to purchase, the location of your home, which level of coverage you choose, general market conditions like the economy or whether insurers are discounting or not that year, and whether there is any special situation which earns you a surcharge or a discount.
Generally speaking, if you have a lot of valuable or high risk personal property, your insurance premiums will be higher because of the added risk. And the same goes if your home is located in a higher crime area.
If insurers are experiencing a poor loss ratio, they could tighten the market and raise prices on your insurance policy to help make up the short fall. This means your policy could cost more even if nothing has changed.
On the plus side, you can save money for positive factors like if you have a good personal claims history, loyalty with the company (ie. you’ve been with that company for a long time or have many insurance policies with them), or if you’ve installed fire suppression sprinklers or burglar alarm systems. All of these factors would earn you rate credits which result in cheaper premiums.
For a more detailed quote on how much home and contents insurance costs for your specific situation, contact a Trusted Union advisor today for a no strings attached quote.
Does home contents insurance cover mobile phones?
Yes, as long as your mobile phone is being used for personal purposes and not for business purposes. Any phones used for business or purchased by a business should be insured under the business’ own commercial property insurance policy.
The home contents insurance policy only insures personal property meant for personal use.
Get your free quote today
Receive a free consultation for a home contents insurance quote. You will then be contacted by an independent insurance broker who will then discuss further your specific requirements.