Content Insurance 101: Everything you Need to Know About Protecting Your Belongings

If you take a look around your home and begin to add up the cost of everything, the total may surprise you. In situations where emergencies occur, you want to be in a position that gives you full coverage for your items (aka: content insurance). Say that your home were to suddenly catch fire, would your insurance cover everything you owned? Although $25,000 may seem like plenty of coverage, when compared to the actual cost of items lost, it can be less than you need. We hope that something as devastating as a fire never occurs, but if it did, do you have the correct renter’s insurance to replace your belongings? Here is everything you need to know about content insurance.

Covering Your Belongings

Many insurance companies will compensate you for belongings lost at the price they are worth in the current market. This can be a loss for you depending on when you purchased the item. The television set you lost was 7 years old and is now only worth $100 in the market today versus the $1,500 you spent when you purchased it. If you are only compensated with the current worth of your items, you are going to have a hard time replacing things. It is beneficial to guarantee that your renter’s insurance will cover replacement costs to help you get an item that is similar in kind and quality. At Nuera Insurance, you can feel comforted that if your stuff was destroyed, your contents will be replaced with similar items. Nuera Insurance wants to see that you get just what you need to return to normal, and will cover items of like quality, not price!

How Much Content Insurance You Need

When loss does occur, you need to provide your insurer with a list of the items affected. This can be difficult when trying to remember all of the contents you possessed. That is why it is beneficial to prepare before incidents occur. Keep a detailed list of your items and, over time, jot down when you bought the item and how much it cost you. Keep copies of receipts, photos, and appraisals for items purchased as these will help you in your claim. Try to have these stored in an online format (Google Docs, Dropbox, etc.) so that if a fire was to destroy your home, you still have evidence of your purchases and the price you bought them at.

Keeping your Content Insurance Current

If you already purchased a content insurance policy but then bought a new high-ticket item for your home afterwards, go back and increase your content insurance limit! Contact your insurer and add on that brand-new expensive coffee table. You want to be sure that it is covered too! Taking action to keep your content insurance policy current will help you in situations when you need to make an accurate claim.

So how much content’s insurance should you have? Go through your home and tally up the rough cost you would require to replace the contents you own. Whatever that number is, speak with your insurance company to discuss policy options. Renter’s insurance is one of the cheapest insurance policy’s you can purchase, and it acts as a precaution for unexpected events. It is better to know you have enough to cover losses than suddenly finding you can’t replace half of your belongings.

Don’t have renter’s insurance? Contact Nuera Insurance to get a quote today and safeguard your contents and belongings!