Decluttering and home contents insurance

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Decluttering and home contents insurance

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Started 10 months ago by lazycow
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lazycow
Member

I've just spent some time with my insurance provider going through my house and contents renewal, attempting to get a discount (I do this every year). The customer rep went through all the various categories of items that can be insured (collections, jewellery, etc) and I realised that we as a family had NONE of these. However, our home contents (as opposed to the building) are insured for $90,000 AUD. Now I know with all the decluttering I've done that we have very little furniture which is worth anything. Probably the items of greatest value are the books (which I have catalogued on LibraryThing in case of disaster!) but I doubt I'd replace most of them anyway. My husband's golf gear is insured under his club membership. We could probably get away with an estimate of $30-40,000. It's quite a liberating thought!

Does anyone who lives in a low-risk area (I'm not talking about flood/tornado/earthquake prone areas!) not bother with contents insurance due to not having much stuff?

Posted 10 months ago #
hlg
Member

I'm in the US, in Florida, land of the hurricanes.. We have renter's insurance on our stuff. Full replacement value up to 20K US$ on all possessions for $35 USD/month with only a $100 deductible. Our furniture is worth nothing as its all from the thrift store (thus the lower amount of the policy) but there are 7 fairly new computers in this house.. Hubby is a computer engineer. Our policy also has a 50K liability clause that will protect us in case something is our fault and ruins the downstairs neighbors stuff. Our apartment management offers absolutely zero coverage for anything like that, so we thought it best to have our own coverage. The less you own, the cheaper it is to replace it. :)

Posted 10 months ago #
jbeany
Member

I'm in a low risk area for weather problems like floods and hurricanes, but I would never go without coverage. I think replacing an entire household, new or used, is going to cost more than you might imagine. It's easy to tally big ticket items, but start counting the little stuff, too. On my desk alone right now - Computer, speakers, printer, batteries, digital camera, address labels, ruler, pens, pencils, white out, tape, stamps, scissors, post-its, stapler, little task lights, a bottle of hand lotion, sanitizer, desk organizer, pen holder, letter holder, daily organizer calendar (which is irreplaceable!), note pads and note books. Plus the desk, the chair, and from under the desk - the brown out power protector, the cord wraps to keep the cat from chewing the cords, the waste basket, the recycle tub with the shredder on top of it, and 3 file boxes and the hanging files to go in them. Some of it may be $1 or $2 items, but those numbers add up. The organizers and the matching file boxes were a $100 trip through Office Max alone, and that was with everything on sale. Add it all up, with the electronics and furniture, and I'd hit over $2000 in a space that's 5 ft x 4 ft. Expand 3 feet out each side of the desk and add in two bookshelves with both books and handmade artwork, and I've more than doubled that, and I've only covered a tiny sliver of my entire apartment.

Posted 10 months ago #
Irulan
Member

Renter's insurance is required by most of the places that I've lived, even though I've always lived in lower-risk areas. I bundle my renter's with my car insurance. I pay about $110 US per year to insure up to $50K for possessions and $300K liability, plus a separate $130 per year for a $1million personal liability rider. I only purchased the rider because it lowered my auto insurance by ~$300 year.

I'm with jbeany on the insurance issue. I'd insure my stuff even if it weren't required because the cost to re-acquire an entire household's worth of stuff becomes exorbitant really quickly.

Posted 10 months ago #
bandicoot
Member

lazycow....i live in a high risk cyclone area....and have done for the last 22 years (and 14 years of that was in flood zones).....and we have never had home OR contents insurance.
we've never really owned enough to bother.
the stuff i would be most annoyed about losing, is irreplaceable anyway.
to buy new household goods wouldn't kill us....especially as we have been saving on insurance premiums for over 2 decades, lol.
i loathe insurance companies with every fibre of my being.
it's just another area in which we choose to be self-sufficient and i realise it isn't everyone's choice.

Posted 10 months ago #
Parsifal
Member

I also rent and only carry $30k worth of insurance to cover replacement of things damaged or destroyed by fire, theft or lightning (plus 100k liability). The thing about insurance is it only covers the cost to replace items, not what it cost to acquire them in the first place. Given that we wouldn't even want to replace everything, we opted for sufficient coverage to replace things we actually need or enjoy for the cost of less than $200 a year.

I think that given the extremely low cost of renter's insurance (compared to, say, health insurance in the US), going without it is an unnecessary risk considering one accident could wipe out my ability to save for years.

Posted 10 months ago #
themusiclivez
Member

I'm an insurance agent in NY and every one of my clients who rents also has contents coverage on their policies. However, some people choose very low limits for their belongings. I carry low limits for my belongings as well because my husband and I don't have a lot of things that we would replace in the event of a loss. Our furniture and household items would be the most expensive things to replace. However, I don't worry about replacing a ton of clothing, media items, etc., because there are many items I wouldn't even want to replace (now if I could only convince my husband to get rid of those items in the first place!)

Just an FYI - if your landlord is requiring that you obtain a Renter's Insurance policy they generally only want to make sure that you have liability insurance. More than likely they don't care if you insure your contents. So if you don't have enough belongings worth insuring, just make sure you carry the liability coverage to meet the lease requirements. (Not to mention it's a great coverage to have).

Posted 10 months ago #
Sky
Member

I live in hurricane and earthquake land. The last terrible hurricane was Hugo in 1989, the last terrible earthquake was 1886 so we are due. We own our home and have replacement value homeowners insurance (mortgage co. requires it) but no riders. Like Bandicoot, I am not a fan of insurance companies. They prey on our fear and insecurities and IMHO, it is a racket.

I have valuable art and jewelry but would need a written appraisal for each piece to insure it. That would be very costly so I'm not going to do it. If I lost it all, we would scale way down and whatever insurance money we got would cover everything we would want to replace with money left over.

Earthquake insurance doesn't cover the first $10,000.00 of loss and if we have a big one, FEMA would step in anyway so I'm not paying higher premiums for it.

Maybe we are foolish but as long as DH and my 2 dogs are okay, the rest is just stuff.

Posted 10 months ago #
pammyfay
Member

FEMA did so well after Katrina, didn't it. I'm not willing to put 100% faith in government and politics.

But in the more general aspect of insurance, I think many people forget that in horrendous circumstances -- and many parts of the world have witnessed catastrophic natural disasters or man-made disasters -- you could well lose everything you own. You wouldn't have a spare pair of socks, a pair of underwear until Red Cross is there to lend a hand. I believe that in these situations, the safety and well-being of the people and pets dearest to you is most important, but I also wouldn't take the rest so lightly. There are a number of first-person accounts (some on the main Unclutterer website) that attest to how difficult it is to start over even with some insurance help.

Posted 10 months ago #
pkilmain
Member

"you could well lose everything you own. You wouldn't have a spare pair of socks, a pair of underwear until Red Cross is there to lend a hand."

This is very true, but insurance won't get to you for days or weeks, and if it's that bad a disaster, there will be nowhere to buy anything anyway. Anyway you slice a huge disaster, you're dependent on the Red Cross or other agency for your immediate needs - food, clothing and shelter. I'm sure it is awful to start over, no matter how much money/insurance you have. It's emotionally hard as well as physically and financially hard. We live in earthquake central here, and my biggest fear is that where we live is on a sort of peninsula, connected to the nearest towns by two bridges, about 12 miles apart. Destruction of those bridges means that we are cut off from any sort of supplies, most likely from our natural gas (since the pipes run under the bridges) and possibly electricity. There is one small convenience store and one gasoline station between the bridges.

We carry insurance on our cars and on our house, all with large deductibles. We have health insurance. We have no life insurance apart from a small policy my parents bought on me when I went to college. I do have long-term care insurance as we have no children to help out when we get too old or in poor health. I saw a lot of people at various places where I worked fall for the fear-mongering of places that sell things like "cancer insurance." My DH had cancer and stem cell transplant, all of which was covered by our regular employer-provided health care insurance.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Back to your regularly scheduled programming. :)

Posted 10 months ago #
lazycow
Member

Thanks everyone for all your informative and insightful responses. I am ambivalent about insurance, but will go ahead with it for my husband's sake. We went through the house yesterday and estimated that we probably had around $50k worth of household items (including *cough* $10k in wine). There is almost nothing that isn't replaceable though, and I'm sure I could do it a lot cheaper the 2nd time round! Much as I love my library, I simply wouldn't re-buy every book. I am attached to the quilts and rugs I have made over the years but could always make more. Even photos don't hold the same emotional pull they used to (and I was the family archivist for most of my life).

Posted 10 months ago #
Sky
Member

Pammyfay....No, FEMA didn't do well after Katrina but they were great after Hugo and other catastrophes, as was the Red Cross.

I don't think anyone is taking this lightly and it would be an awful thing to start over even with insurance but like Bandicoot said, the most important things are not replaceable. Insurance or not.

Posted 10 months ago #
lottielot
Member

There's always stuff like burglaries, fires etc, more likely round here than earthquakes or hurricanes! If you save for a rainy day what you would otherwise spend on insurance then that's fine, but I wouldn't want to lose everything in a house fire (as happened to my neighbours a few years ago) for the sake of a few hundred pounds a year. Beds, furniture, kitchen stuff, clothes soon mount up even if you replace nothing else. I hate insurance companies (who doesn't) but half the reason premiums are so high is due to fraud. Either organised criminals or (just as bad IMO) immoral people who justify claims on the basis that insurance companies are evil. They claim a bit extra, or they inflate values of stuff, all of which the rest of us honest people end up paying for.

Posted 10 months ago #
Jackthetiger
Member

Lazycow, $10K in wine? I think the party must be at your place! Or is it just one special bottle of Grange Hermitage?

Posted 10 months ago #
Netleigh
Member

Even if you saved the insurance money it would not give you the resources to rebuild a house destroyed by fire or made uninhabitable by floods. There are also the alternative housing costs during the rebuild period. We've had quite a few unusual floods here in the UK in recent years and people who bemoan the fact that there is no help for them and they had no insurance.
However we have always used the maxim of insure what you can't afford to loose, so the rip off merchants with appliance breakdown insurance don't get a look in.

Posted 10 months ago #
rutheverhart
Member

Party at Lazycow's house next weekend! I want to be friends with people who have that kind of wine cellar!

Posted 10 months ago #
lottielot
Member

I would so be uncluttering that wine cellar, lazycow :) We could never have a wine cellar, my dh drinks it too fast!

Posted 10 months ago #
Irulan
Member

Netleigh, I agree that saved insurance money wouldn't be enough for rebuilding. At current cost and discounting interest, I'd have to save almost 250 years worth of premiums to get to my coverage amount.

@lazycow: I'll happily relieve you of some of that wine. ;) If you don't plan on replacing everything, then you're probably okay to choose a higher deductible option and then keep the deductible amount in a savings account that would be accessible from an evacuation destination.

Posted 10 months ago #
lazycow
Member

Ooops, sorry everyone! I think it should read $1K of wine. Although pre-kids I'm sure we had around $10k worth :-)

Posted 10 months ago #
rutheverhart
Member

Can we still have a party, lazycow?

Posted 10 months ago #

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