Don’t sell your home insuance short

New data from CompareNI.com shows that the average value of home contents in Northern Ireland is an eye-watering £37,520, which means many homeowners could be vastly underinsuring their contents if they guesstimate their total value instead of working the figures out as accurately as possible.

Mid and East Antrim was the highest district with an average of £41,543 while Mid-Ulster was the lowest with £35,046.66.  Customer estimations show a huge range, with the lowest individual sum insured for £5,000 and the highest being £100,000.

Contents cover is designed to insure everything people would take with them if they were moving to a new house.  The value should be calculated by totalling up the large and expensive items such as TVs and electrical equipment, beds and sofas, kitchen appliances, gardening equipment and outdoor furniture – online estimators are available to help total up correctly.

Responding to the new data, Greg Wilson, founder of CompareNI.com, comments: “The Christmas season normally sees a spike in burglaries and winter weather also puts our homes at risk of flooding and frozen pipes.  It is crucial that customers correctly total up the sum of their contents – failure to do so may mean they won’t have enough money to replace the items in their home should they be stolen or damaged.

“Some added security measures might be worth the investment such as CCTV cameras, a burglar alarm or motion sensor lighting.  If people don’t have additional budget right now there are still things that can be done to increase security such as putting lights on a timer, joining the local neighbourhood watch scheme and checking caller ID.

“It’s also worth clearing out drains, sweeping chimneys, fitting additional smoke alarms, and making sure pipes have adequate insulation – all of which can help minimise the risk.  Some of these measures may even help bring the cost of home insurance down, so it’s an investment worth exploring.”

The Home Insurance Index saw very little change this quarter with Newry, Mourne and Down still the most expensive average home insurance policies at £190 and Ards and North Down still the cheapest at just £167 – the average overall Northern Ireland figure went up by just £2 to £175.

The CompareNI.com Home Insurance Index released its data for Q3 today, based on a sample of over 4,000 standard Northern Ireland properties.  The research uses the average cost of policies for each district to create the figures for contents insurance and the cheapest home insurance premium offered to each policyholder to calculate regional and national averages for the home index figures.

CompareNI.com has grown to become Northern Ireland’s largest price comparison platform, comparing over 30 home insurance providers instantly. For more information visit – compareni.com/insurance/home.htm   

Average Home Insurance Price & Contents Value – by NI District

* A standard home insurance policy is defined as one where the property being insured doesn’t have any risk factors that insurers might class as non-standard, eg a thatched roof, a flat roof, a timber frame etc.  ** A small number of properties are classed as ‘other’ and are not featured for type of property.