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Contents insurance - How do you value your Hifi?

I spent a year working in amendments at Direct Line a few years ago, I have to say that my experience of their cover was very positive, to the extent that I switched to a policy with them.

From memory, you have to declare that the contents policy cover is adequate for your entire contents, usually £50k on a standard policy and £100k on a plus policy. The only items that then have a single article limit is valuables - Jewelry, watches, coin collections, art and the like, and these can only make up a certain percentage of your overall contents value (£15k if memory serves). Despite the price hifi is not classed as a valuable, so you can have £40k of hifi covered on a standard policy as long as you are under the limit in total. I'd say it's definitely worth putting them on your consideration list and maybe even ringing them as you might be pleasantly surprised at how easily the cover suits your needs. Obviously there can be endorsements applied but that is the same for everyone and very much dependent on underwriting risk assessment criteria.

As I say it was 6 or 7 years ago that I worked for them so my experience (and memory) could well be out of date. but as someone that's been on the inside of how they treat their customers I'd definitely recommend them.
 
so you can have £40k of hifi covered on a standard policy as long as you are under the limit in total.

Not just under the limit but as a proportion of your total contents. Usually this is/was covered by 'A-V', which included accidental damage whether you had this on the rest or not. No good having £50Ks worth of contents and a £40K hifi set-up unless you lived in a tent. I doubt that many established people can truly get in under the £50K which used to be the lower (affordable) standard a number of years back using the 'new for old' terms.
 
A careful adding up of your contents of an even slightly larger than average house will soon eat up £100k. So the reality is that off-the-peg policies are not suitable for many.
 
A careful adding up of your contents of an even slightly larger than average house will soon eat up £100k. So the reality is that off-the-peg policies are not suitable for many.

so true - think carefully what you would do in the event of a total loss..... literally losing everything in say a fire - replacing every single possession we when added it up we were woefully under insured.
 
Not just under the limit but as a proportion of your total contents. Usually this is/was covered by 'A-V', which included accidental damage whether you had this on the rest or not. No good having £50Ks worth of contents and a £40K hifi set-up unless you lived in a tent. I doubt that many established people can truly get in under the £50K which used to be the lower (affordable) standard a number of years back using the 'new for old' terms.

I wasn't suggesting everyone has less than 10k of other contents, but looking at the OPs first post It suggested that he wasn't heavily laden with furnishings and household belongings. So unless his hifi really is 70k+ an off the peg policy might be suitable in his case.
 
Chances of a house burning down seem to be about 1 in 3000 - though I’m sure other figures are available if you look into it.
Bit higher than I thought. Obviously depends on several household factors such as smoking, electrical/gas appliances…..
 
Chances of a house burning down seem to be about 1 in 3000 - though I’m sure other figures are available if you look into it.
Bit higher than I thought. Obviously depends on several household factors such as smoking, electrical/gas appliances…..

... 'audiophile' fuses ...
 
so true - think carefully what you would do in the event of a total loss..... literally losing everything in say a fire - replacing every single possession we when added it up we were woefully under insured.

I’m working on the assumption that what I have is irreplaceable. There is just way, way too much of my time and effort in it. Literally a lifetime building the record collection, countless hundreds of hours seeking out and restoring the hi-fi, some of which is effectively a one off. If everything got wiped out I’d just buy a streaming system based around something like a valve preamp and a pair of MEG active monitors. No way in hell would I even attempt to rebuild a record/CD collection. It is basically impossible to get back where I am now. I wouldn’t even attempt it.
 
I care little about the media. It is everything else that adds up, clearly some stuff is irreplaceable, but much is not
 
I’m working on the assumption that what I have is irreplaceable. There is just way, way too much of my time and effort in it. Literally a lifetime building the record collection, countless hundreds of hours seeking out and restoring the hi-fi, some of which is effectively a one off. If everything got wiped out I’d just buy a streaming system based around something like a valve preamp and a pair of MEG active monitors. No way in hell would I even attempt to rebuild a record/CD collection. It is basically impossible to get back where I am now. I wouldn’t even attempt it.

So does that mean that you wouldn't bother to insure it? Or would you just insure for a cursory amount? I ask, because my wife was onto me today about reviewing our level of cover wrt my equipment and music collection.
 
So does that mean that you wouldn't bother to insure it? Or would you just insure for a cursory amount? I ask, because my wife was onto me today about reviewing our level of cover wrt my equipment and music collection.

I do have building and contents insurance, but it bares little resemblance to the actual value of my record collection. It would easily buy me a very, very nice replacement hi-fi system, but I’d obviously have lost the potential retirement income stream of slowly selling the record collection. I view both as irreplaceable for the reasons given upthread so the monitory value is kind of irrelevant. I could go out and buy a very nice brand new hi-fi tomorrow if I wanted to, none of this is a ‘money thing’ for me. Its the time, the work, the obsession to the tiniest detail that is just impossible to price. I have records where I’m on my fifth or sixth copy finding that perfect one. There is a decade of learning and obsession in the TD-124, it took me five years to find the right condition and age second TL12 Plus to make the pair, I searched for six to find the JR149s, my Lockwood cabs have real studio history etc. Trying to replace this stuff would be way too stressful to even contemplate.
 
I realised last month that quite a bit of my hi-fi was above the "£2500 single item" limit when discussing renewal with my building and content insurers. I then totted up a likely replacement cost (my kit is in my signature line) - told them, after a brief internal consultation, the house and contents cover went up by ...£1.
 
Our buildings & contents insurance is with Halifax, we take out a new 'Ultimate' policy each year with them online as this yields the best price (like most service/insurance providers they try to shaft you upon renewal). Unlimited buildings and contents except for high risk items which is limited to the threshold you specify (max you can specify is £50k). You don''t need to disclose on an individual item basis unless more than £3k. Price is very reasonable IMO, then again we benefit from being 10+ years without a contents claim and 9 years without a buildings claim (touch wood!) so that no doubt helps. You also don't have probing questions such as what grade of locks do you have and does you dog have a convincingly fierce bark, etc...
 
quite low - have you read all the small print.
Yes, IMO the policy booklet is pretty clear about what is and isn't covered and what contents are classified as high risk.

hmmm, an important question and risk. I'd be worried if they didn't ask those questions
It does however feel like some insurers do go out of their way to catch you out with some of their questions.

Also, perhaps I'm paranoid but I also don't like giving out too many details about my house and belongings when obtaining quotes for insurance. I remember reading about someone who was burgled very soon after moving to an insurer to whom they detailed a number of specified items. Every specified item on the list was then stolen! Probably just a coincidence, but...
 
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I realised last month that quite a bit of my hi-fi was above the "£2500 single item" limit when discussing renewal with my building and content insurers.

I'm surprised that the insurers didn't mention that audio-visual (incl. hifi) isn't a 'valuable' for contents insurance purposes with most (?) policies. Maybe theirs is different, but I do find it odd after a lifetime of insuring contents and hifi (45+ years).

Apologies, as I think I misunderstood your sentence if by 'quite a bit' means 'a number of pieces/items'. I have had A-V cover which restricts the value of single items but £2,500 does seem a bit low.
 
I'm surprised that the insurers didn't mention that audio-visual (incl. hifi) isn't a 'valuable' for contents insurance purposes with most (?) policies. Maybe theirs is different, but I do find it odd after a lifetime of insuring contents and hifi (45+ years).

Apologies, as I think I misunderstood your sentence if by 'quite a bit' means 'a number of pieces/items'. I have had A-V cover which restricts the value of single items but £2,500 does seem a bit low.

Yes I have a number of units over that amount. They asked me how much the total value would be to replace, I gave them an estimation and a few minutes later they came back and raised my premium by a quid.
 


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