Most people who own a home have house insurance which covers their real property in the event of a disaster or other types of damage.  This type of insurance is usually mandatory to own a mortgage.  What most people overlook, however, is having home contents insurance to cover their personal belongings that aren’t attached to the property itself.  It is vital that you protect the property that you have acquired with the sweat of your labour.

How To Find The Best Home Content Insurance

The best home content insurance will be the one that has the right combination of coverage for your valuables at the lowest rate possible.  Here are the steps to take to find best insurance quotes and comparisons as you look for the right policy.  Remember, in the event of a disaster or robbery, you will see this as one of the best investments you could ever make.

Whether you live in an Australian state like New South Wales or Manchester, England, you will want to look into getting this kind of insurance.  It will protect against losses and damage on your personal property.

Take Inventory of Your Valuables

The first place you want to start is not actually shopping for home and contents insurance.  It’s making a list of all of the valuables that you want to insurance.  Make a running list of all the items with the amount of how much it is worth.  Your list will be the centre of your policy search.

Then you should separate the items into different tiers.  This is where most people stop.  You should make a tier one, tier two and tier three category for your valuables.  Prioritize them in the order of importance.  For example, put all the items that must be insured in tier one.  Put items that don’t absolutely require coverage but would be good to have in tier three.

The reason you want to categorize and prioritize your list is because you may not want to pay the premium for a policy that covers everything.  So it is important to decide upfront, which items you are willing to let go in the cover.

Document with Digital Pictures and Video

This is a very important step if you want to make your life easier should you need to make a claim. Take digital photographs of all your most valuable items.  It would be a good idea to create reference numbers for them that link to your list with the price tag on it.

Then upload those pictures online so they are in a safe place.  Should your house be hit with a natural disaster, for example, you may lose any hard copy pictures you made.  In addition, your computer might have been damaged as well, so if your pictures aren’t online, you have no record.  This is so when you need to make a claim on your home & content insurance, you have a separate location for your documents.

You should also take video of all your lower value contents that you want covered.  This is just a quick way to document the fact that you own what you claim as losses.  It is also important to have them documented in good condition as well.

Shopping for Cheap Home Contents Insurance

Finding the cheapest home contents insurance quote and comparison doesn’t have to be difficult.  You just have to do the due diligence.  But in finding the cheapest rates, you need to make sure you are getting the coverage you need.  Here are the steps to take when shopping for the right coverage.

Go Online for Quotes and Comparison

Shopping online is the best place to get quotes and comparisons for your policy.  But once you get the quotes, make sure you read the fine print to find out what the coverage actually is.  You don’t just want to compare prices.  You want to also compare coverage, requirements and limitations as well.

Once you have a few quotes in hand, start calling around to both the online dealers and local insurance brokers.  Start getting quotes from them and start asking tons of questions.  Insurance brokers are the best people to ask questions because they usually represent multiple carriers.

Other Insurance Information

There is other great information on insurance you can read about on this website.  There is a great article about commercial insurance that talks about buying policies for your business.

There is also an article about getting cheap commercial insurance.  It talks about how to find cheap rates but also gives a warning about making sure you have the right coverage.

In the US it is called renters insurance.  Otherwise, in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, it is called home contents insurance.

The insurance industry is regulated in Australia by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).  You can also get more information from the Insurance Council of Australia which represents the industry there.  Certain aspects of the industry may be regulated by specific states.

If you are in the UK and own a business, you should read my business contents insurance article.  It gives a clear and concise overview of this category of insurance policies and how best to proceed.

Also, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) is in charge of overseeing the insurance industry in the UK.  They are an independent body given authority by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 of the British Parliament.