Q: How can I avoid being under-insured?
A: By conducting an annual Inventory on your assets in your home you can prevent under-insurance (you will find an Inventory Form under the FORMS Tab – “Other Forms”). When evaluating your household items, you should apply CURRENT replacement costs to all items. Remember that household contents insurance refers to all the possessions that are in your home, , including but not limited to moveable furniture, loose rugs and carpets, curtains, linen, crockery, cutlery, clothing, jewellery, appliances, audio visual equipment. An easy way to determine what falls into this category is to imagine taking the roof off your home and turning it upside down … everything that falls out then constitutes your household contents to be insured.
Remember, when you insure your assets you are not only insuring against burglary and theft, you are insuring against a number of unpredictable events including lightning, fire, storm, wind, water and flooding so any idea you may have of excluding items that you feel a burglar would not be able to or interested in taking, you should reconsider the additional perils (such as FIRE) which may occur.