Contents Insurance - general increase each year.

[Bearty]

Just wondering if anybody has come across any guidelines re contents insurance? Or more specifically a guideline on how much we should be increasing our contents cover by each year. This is our 1st renewal (i.e. second year). I was thinking of increasing it by somewhere between 5-10% on the prior year. Is this too high? We have not made any major purchases that I can think of that were not taken account of last year but obviously a lot of smaller items have been bought which collectively increase contents value, but can be difficult to calculate!

 

[LDFerguson]

Did the insurance company not add an automatic increase at renewal?

 

[Bearty]

They only increased it by €500 which I doubt is enough.

 

[AB74]

I recommend a 5% increase as most house insurance policies available on the market apply index linking of this level automatically to both buildings and contents sections.

You may find that All Risks items are not automatically index linked and you would need to advise your broker/insurer to increase the sum insured under these sections, e.g. for items of jewellery , possibly requiring a valuation to prove value if more valuable.

 

[Ed054]

I recommend a 5% increase as most house insurance policies available on the market apply index linking of this level automatically to both buildings and contents sections.

You may find that All Risks items are not automatically index linked and you would need to advise your broker/insurer to increase the sum insured under these sections, e.g. for items of jewellery , possibly requiring a valuation to prove value if more valuable.

Most Insurers use The Society of Chartered Surveyors rebuilding guide to increase building sums insured and the Retail Price Index for Contents and the % increase can change more or less then 5% I would suggest contacting your Insurer or Broker to get their advice.I do not think it is advisable to take a set % as the amount that you need to increase your sums insured by.
You are responsible to make sure that your suns insured are adequate and in respect of All Risks Insurance on Jewellery it is no harm to get a valuation every few years from a Jeweller.