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What is Student Possessions Insurance?

Student possessions insurance is an essential element of security for any student living away from home in halls or rented accommodation. For a premium affordable by students, it will provide cover for items stolen in the event that your residence is burgled, as unfortunately thieves often target student property.

As a student you aren’t likely to be able to afford the loss of expensive possessions such as iPods and phones so in the event of your residence being broken into and items removed, your insurer will provide financial compensation to replace items covered by your insurance policy!

Flexible Insurance

Insuring your possessions is a flexible process, although the price of your policy will increase with the value of the items on the policy, so it’s important to be prudent as to what things you keep as a student and which of these you want to insure. You might want to leave your expensive watch or jewellery at home!

When getting your quote you can choose an upper limit for the value of your general coverage (ie. £2000, £4000, £6000). This will deal with the majority of your possessions but if you have any particularly expensive or precious items, you will be able to add itemised extras at an increased premium.

Most insurers expect you to be careful to prevent unwanted entry into your residence (don’t leave the front door swinging open in the breeze!) but there are some which amazingly offer total coverage regardless of circumstances. It will always be in your best interests to do the basics when it comes to preventing theft however, just remember to take care.

In addition to insuring items in your residence, most insurers will offer coverage at an increased rate for individual items you are liable to take with you under an ‘all risks’ policy. This means, for example, you can insure your laptop allowing you to worry a little less about taking a break while working at the library, or, importantly if it’s your primary mode of transport, your bicycle!

Be careful to understand the fine print regarding how your policy covers you during holidays or for out of term-time incidents.

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Other things to consider with Student Possessions Insurance

The basics of insuring your possessions are all well and good but there are lots of additional factors you should also consider in order to manage your premiums. Every insurer will base the fundamentals of a premium on the area in which you are living. While living in halls will generally provide the lowest base rate, if you’re going into your later university years you’ll probably want to live with friends in a flat or house of your choice.

Bear in mind if you choose to live in a dense inner city area that doesn’t have the best of crime rates, your basic premium will be noticeably higher than when living in a more suburban residential area. One factor that is clearly out of your control is that attending university in London will invariably result in higher premiums.

Insurance Matters

You really cannot underestimate the importance of insuring your possessions. The typical student will be facing genuine financial independence for the first time and a key part of this is managing your own funds. As careful as you may be, if a resourceful thief takes hundreds of pounds worth of property and you’re not insured, you will be in a situation from which it may be hard to recover.

The key thing about student insurance is that it is catered to a student budget. Unless you are desperate to bring particularly expensive items to university, which you would certainly want to insure, the average premium is rarely more then around £100, perhaps £150-200 if you are attending a city university and not in halls. This single premium will ensure your possessions for an entire year from the point of purchase and the insurance provider will remind you when the time comes to renew the policy and will explain how any changes will affect your premium

Most major insurers offer good student possessions insurance. Getting a quote online is absurdly easy to do, as these firms’ websites will take you through the process in a methodical and easy-to-understand fashion. Given the ease and affordability of a student policy, any concern that you might buy a policy for three years without ever needing it really shouldn’t even be a consideration. It’s the safest, most responsible thing to do with your possessions as you move away from home for the first time.

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What is Home Insurance?

Home insurance, or Contents Insurance, is precisely what it sounds like; it’s a form of insurance which offers cover for private homes. These can be houses, flats, bungalows or certain other types of private residence. An insurance policy covers all of the items in the home, such as televisions, bicycles, jewellery and clothing as well as the home itself against theft and damage.

How much the cost of a policy is will depend on what is in the home and how much both the residency and its contents are worth. It can also depend on how many precautions the owner has taken to ward off burglars, where the home is located and what crime statistics are like locally.

Is Home Insurance Cheap?

A home insurance policy is also comprised of a contract which details all that is covered and what will and won’t be paid out in certain conditions. Home insurance policies are also taken out for specific periods so it is possible to switch policy or insurance provider if you’re not happy with a policy you hold or want to find a cheaper deal just like you could with a mobile phone contract.

Often the amount you’ll have to pay is dependent on where your home is so, for example, if you’re living close to flood plains, you’re likely to pay more than if you’re at the top of a hill next to a fire station. There are also certain types of crime associated with different areas and this is taken into account by insurers.

Why is Home Insurance Required?

No-one can be prepared for having their most precious possessions stolen or returning to a home which has burned down and there are many things which are hard to replace due to their sentimental value, let alone the literal financial cost of doing so. Home insurance is required so that if anything bad happens to your home or belongings you’re able to carry the financial burden easily, fix or rebuild the house and replace lost items.

Direct Line provide home insurance and offer free advice on keeping everything in your house safe from intruders. In a recent statement to the press, the head of Technical Services outlined some things that people can do to make their homes safer.

“Installing an intruder alarm, good quality locks and security lighting or living in a Neighbourhood Watch area can all help to deter a burglar entering a person’s home.” She said. Adding, “as well as providing customers with quality insurance cover we also offer customers a possible discount on the costs of their cover, if they do take some security and safety precautions.”

This is true of many home insurance providers and it’s common practice to get lower premiums on home insurance by adding simple things like deadbolts and alarms.

What Does Home Insurance Cover?

Home insurance covers everything in your home and garden against theft, loss and damage provided you’ve taken reasonable steps to protect it. For example it would cover a bicycle kept out of street view and chained or locked up but not a bicycle laid on the front lawn for anyone to take.

Building Insurance

Building Insurance is different to home insurance and sometimes this causes confusion. Whilst many home insurance policies cover the building itself, it’s also possible to get separate building and contents policies, though these rarely work out cheaper and are not as useful or comprehensive.

Building insurance only covers the building itself for damage, so as a rule of thumb, if you have building insurance everything covered is only everything which would stay if it were ransacked, literally, anything bolted down. The contents are not insured in a building insurance policy.

Home Insurance Benefits

The benefits of having home insurance are many; the most major being that if anything happens to your belongings or house you can rest assured that the insurance company will cover the costs of getting your life back on track. But apart from the obvious benefits there are others. Home Insurance from the company Privilege offers an array of free extras, for example, cover is increased automatically around Christmas time and around the time of a family wedding by 10%.

Also, according to the Privilege website they “don’t just cover the possessions in your home.” But actually “cover belongings in garages and sheds, as well as up to £500 cover for contents in your garden.” Also if your children go to university and stay in university accommodation their belongings will be insured too, up to £5000. Privilege cover even stretches to the contents of your freezer remarkably, though not many burglars tend to steal frozen food. It could still come in handy if there’s a power cut though!