this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Contents insurance up 33% for us. Is this common? (lemmy.nz)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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We've got contents insurance with AA and from next year we'll be paying 33% more. We have had 2 claims for a different policy this year, one at fault, one not, and they said it wouldn't impact our premiums. Is this common for everyone? I understand it goes up because of all the floods, but 33% is very significant.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Not sure sorry.

But it does raise the question about at which point is a revolving credit a better deal then contents insurance?

Assume that you have $100k of contents; you pay X to insure it; is X more or less than the 8.39%pa on $100k? How likely are you to loose all $100k of the contents?

e.g. if you say knock your TV off the wall, a new 50" TV is say $2500; the cost of $2500 over 5 years is $57/month. How much are you paying on your contents?

This is not good advice; if you break stuff often, or you can't put your "insurance" money into a savings account.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah valid point. We're mainly covering it in case of a total loss, ie our house burns down.

For the rest we don't have expensive items, we have a $600 Warehouse Veon TV for example. Probably most expensive in our contents is my ebike with new price $1450

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's really the only reason to have contents insurance. I don't have the contents insurance to hand.

House insurance is a no-brainer; I just checked mine and we pay ~0.25% of the value of the house to insure it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, we something similar. Contents is more expensive, we're going to pay about 800 for 120k insured. Still, important to have, but perhaps going to increase excess as Dave suggested @[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is $120k appropriate? I feel like we have lots of stuff, but if the house burned down we'd only be looking to replace the key stuff. Beds, computers, furniture, clothes, etc.

We have $40k coverage and I have trouble justifying that much!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I thought it was too much too, but it adds up quickly. We've got 5 bikes, roughly $5k. Kitchen appliances, another $3k. Washing machine and dryer, $1500. Clothes per person, $5k, times 4. TV, gaming console, $1500. PC and monitors, $1500. NAS, $1000. Curtains. Bread maker. Garden tools. DIY tools. Desks. And so on.

I filled out a calculator online and it even said more, but we went with $120k. When my house burns down I don't want to be in a position we're underinsured.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

In the very unlikely event of total loss, we wouldn't be replacing everything. Just the minimum. Sure we have a breadmaker we never use and a big pile of tools accumulated over time as needed and even a TV that we hardly use, as well as big piles of clothes that we only wear a fraction of but really we would just be buying essentials and starting again so $40k should cover that. We don't have expensive taste anyway.

Contents insurance is on the cheap end of insurance so I wouldn't stress about it too much, keep ot high if that makes you comfortable. I just have trouble thinking of how we would possibly find enough to spend $120k on! I think I should find a calculator and see if there's something I'm missing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

One thing often overlooked is that your contents insurance is also where your liability insurance lies. So it's not just for your stuff, but also in case one of your trees falls on the neighbour's Lamborghini, or you're otherwise responsible for property damage of someone else's stuff.

Contents insurance is important. If you're trying to self-insure then just put your excess high and the contents insured value low.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Good point

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

At some point, I need to go through the various insurances we have and check we are getting good value for money, between house, contents, and cars, it's a lot.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I do that regularly and every time AA comes out cheapest, or slightly more expensive. We've had multiple claims via the and so far so good. Just did a quote with AMI and they are twice the price of AA. Guess we'll just have to suck it up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

We've always found the bank insurance to be cheapest. For a long time we had third party only for cars (only last year did we get our first car worth more than a few grand) and we could get third party for about $120 a year through the bank (no fire/theft/windows). We couldn't get anything near that anywhere else.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Which bank offers insurance? Ours (BNZ) doesn't I believe.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I thought it was a common product. Easy to sell house insurance with a mortgage. It's just a reselling though, they aren't the actual insurer.

We use ANZ but it looks like BNZ has the same stuff: https://www.bnz.co.nz/personal-banking/insurance

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, didn't know BNZ had that. Seems like I can't do online quotes. One of those things, not sure if it's worth the hassle.

E.g. I just switched to Kogan Mobile for my wife and I as it was much cheaper, but for my wife can't get number port to work. So much time wasted on their support. In the end just given up and she'll use the Kogan sim for data only, luckily she has a dual sim phone.

So I know AA is good so probably stick with them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

The next time you buy a house or apply for a credit card or something, have the bank quote you for insurance too. I tend to find it's easier when you're already going through an involved process as you can provide info once for two different things.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Hmm ours went up about 15% during the year, but not 30%. We aren't in a flood zone, though (our neighbours house would have water at the ceiling before water was at our floor).

As I've mentioned before, we keep all our excesses as high as we can so if they are accounting for more small claims then that might not affect us so much.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah think it makes sense with big ticket items like houses and contents. With vehicles, we've got relatively cheap cars and then it's nice to have lower excess. Financially it may not be the best option, but peace of mind knowing that any scratch costs max 500 is nice too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We are lucky to be in a position that the higher excesses (normally $1k-2k from memory) won't cause us financial stress. Even if lots of things go bad at once, it will hurt but won't be damaging long term, just make it take longer to pay off the mortgage.

I guess I just hate paperwork more than I want the coverage, claiming on insurance is not something I want to do, so I put excesses higher to avoid it. Peace of mind for me is knowing I don't have to spend several days arguing with the insurance company over $500 😆. We sometimes spend that much at the supermarket! (Though having a few of those prompted me to buy a lot more from the weekend markets, so it hasn't actually happened for a while).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Yeah the excess would be fine with us as well. My experience with smaller claims is that it's quick and easy, had 2 claims <$3k and they were approved quickly.

The current damage to our car is roughly $20k so that's a different story.