Insurance

[uncle tom]

For some time I've been paying a small fortune for my home insurance, arranged through a broker, to include the contents that lie in the cellar.

I've recently become aware of of Aviva's unlimited home insurance - which does not set specific sums insured, but uses the location of your home to estimate the likely risk.

They have limitations on valuables, which they clearly define, but makes no mention of fine wine, or anything that seems able to be construed as fine wine.

Aha! I thought - what about the insurer's time honoured catch-all - the requirement to declare 'material facts' when taking out insurance.. But I can't find any reference to those words on either the policy documents or the online proposal.

What have I missed? - or is this a really good deal..?

[jdaw1]

If you tell the insurer what your booze is worth, you have done the uberrima fides. Do that.

[uncle tom]

If you tell the insurer what your booze is worth, you have done the uberrima fides. Do that.

Agreed - but if you go through the online proposal, there is no opportunity to do that..

[DRT]

I think a call to the insurer explaining what you have and asking for written confirmation that it is insured is safer than relying on a perceived loophole.

[uncle tom]

Well, I asked if a collection of wine constituted 'valuables' and therefore subject to limited cover, and this was their reply:

Hello Mr Archer,

Thank you for contacting us.

Wine does not fall under the definition of valuables.

There is no need to specify a collection of items which are not defined as valuables. The wine collection will be covered
as standard within the contents sum insured.

Any other queries, please don't hesitate to contact us.

[benread]

Tom. What does the policy say about the contents sun insured? Check the policy definition carefully. Also, if it does specify an amount, check whether it is covering the current value or replacement value.

The old adage of ‘if it looks too good to be true, it probably is’ generally holds!


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[Glenn E.]

Tom. What does the policy say about the contents sun insured? Check the policy definition carefully. Also, if it does specify an amount, check whether it is covering the current value or replacement value.

The old adage of ‘if it looks too good to be true, it probably is’ generally holds!

If this is something more akin to a blanket umbrella policy, then what Tom is seeing make perfect sense. They aren't insuring your home, per se, but rather a fixed amount of value. The fact that they use the location of the home to estimate likely risk also fits this mode of insurance.

That said, blanket umbrella policies are generally more expensive than a similar size policy that insures something specific.

[JacobH]

I’ve had similar thoughts about contents insurance for similar reasons to you. It seems like a lot of polices, on their face, are quite generous these days if you have a collection of something where each item is not highly valuable (e.g. > £1,000) but you have quite a lot of them or the whole collection is something which would not be easy to replace. But then, I guess, if you are not in a flood area, the prospects of having to seriously pay out for full contents replacement are pretty low so perhaps they can offer them economically? Have you thought about asking on general wine forums to see if there are any views there?

[JacobH]

If this is something more akin to a blanket umbrella policy, then what Tom is seeing make perfect sense. They aren't insuring your home, per se, but rather a fixed amount of value. The fact that they use the location of the home to estimate likely risk also fits this mode of insurance.

That said, blanket umbrella policies are generally more expensive than a similar size policy that insures something specific.

I’m not sure how it works in the states but the usual model in the UK is that you have home insurance that insures the building (and which is usually insisted on by a bank as a condition of a mortgage so that if, for example, your house burns down, they will know it will get rebuilt and therefore their loan is safe!) and contents insurance which covers your possessions. In the past, you would buy contents insurance up to a certain value (e.g. £20,000) but the problem you could then have is that if you made a claim for a smaller amount they might say that if everything in your home was worth more than the total insured value they wouldn’t pay anything out at all. In recent years, the caps seem to be increasing and there are more than a few unlimited ones that claim to insure everything inside the building.

[uncle tom]

Tom. What does the policy say about the contents sun insured?

It says 'Unlimited'

[nac]

My home insurance is with NFU. I've listed wine as a separate high-value item, similar to valuables. Has an associated fixed value which increases automatically by a fixed % at annual renewal. If it changed dramatically I'd just need to update NFU.