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Contents insurance - How do you value your Hifi?

HarryCrumb

HarryCrumb

pfm Member
Hello,

Due to the transient and content-free way in which I have led my life so far, I've never had to have home or contents insurance. This, however, is about to change... I'm picking up the keys to my first house next week and I now own several sets of expensive old speakers and amps and as I look through quotes I am wondering how people go about valuing these kinds of things.

It's easy enough to work out the replacement value of a Macbook Pro, but what about a set of Tannoy Monitor Golds?

As a side question, is it generally better to get separate covers for home and contents?

Thanks!
 
congratulations harry , great news . its neither better or worse to get together . just get the best deal , make sure 5 lever locks on all exterior doors , get the excess high , cut out accidental damage and you should be ok
 
Pay for a valuation for insurance from an accredited dealer in vintage audio?
Receipts might not reflect actual value, especially if you've owned classics for a long time, or have hit lucky at a car boot or auction.
 
Trawl the comparison sites for a quote.
Valuing old gear is difficult.
I have new for old on all of my kit to answer that question.
You may have to go to a broker to get an agreed value for old and valuable items
Even then I wouldn't guarantee you would be paid in full if they were nicked
 
Depending on the policy, the threshold for 'valuables' is normally £1000 or £1500. So if the value of each individual item is less, they should be covered on the general policy, but you may need to itemize bits that are above this level, which adds to the cost. My setup is a few thousand, but only the speakers are above that level.
 
we did an inventory after a colleague suffered a total loss from a fire. He claimed for everything he owned, and was at least 50% under insured. We made a systematic inventory with model numbers, serial numbers and purchase price/date, and a photo. When we did yhe inventory about 5 years ago we discovered we were about 30% under insured.

John Lewis is quite good but refused to quote for me due to some of the named items. We used Hiscox for a while but they got quite pricey. A Plan private insurance is who we are with now.
 
Hi im with LV, and they will insure each item up to £10,000, but you do have to put details down on your policy, when taking it out, and this comes in a normal policy, so you are not paying silly money, i think my hifi is insured for about £67,000, all in, amps, cd player, stand ,cables speakers, multi way block, etc, when i first took insurance out with them, i did phone them to be rock solid sure, and they said yes,,
 
If you have items you feel may be valued above the individual item threshold then list them separately and indeed an independent valuation can be useful although difficult to explain HiFi prices to a loss adjuster.

There aren't any policies that cover old hifi in the same way as a classic car so it's good to have this discussion up-front. List everything including serial numbers and send it to them.

Also, be aware that cheap is not always best, look for an insurer who has a good payout record rather than just a cheap one. The cheap one aims never to pay out, the others put in risk correctly and takes a hit when something happens. Make sure you disclose all information asked for, don't just think it doesn't apply....

And lastly, ALWAYS read the policy carefully and what you're covered for and especially things like distance from water sources (even if you're 50 metres above it!), whether they disregard building types, materials etc etc.
 
As others have said, it's only items over a particular level that need to be named. This used to be £1k, it's generally more now. Hifi is low risk these days, nobody wants it and it's not easily portable. Jewellery, watches, designer clothing are probably more saleable and of interest to insurers. I was burgled 10 years ago, they never touched the hifi, but 2 sets of car keys went, as did the cars.
 
How universal it is, I don't know, but in my experience, a contents insurance value above £100,000 means that you will be asked to have an alarm fitted - if your new home has one already, happy days on that count.

As mentioned previously, a contents insurance will cover everything up to your declared total value, but only any individual item to a certain figure, anything over that figure will not be insured for full value. You need to ask for that figure, but it always USED TO BE mentioned, unprompted. Anything over that figure will needed to be listed individually, complete with value.

Go for a new for old policy, which most are, in my experience.

As a new home-owner, I suspect that your total household contents won't get there, but £100,00 does not go far - over 1000 LPs here, maybe an average of £20 each to replace would be low......................

I hope everything goes smoothly for you, move and insurance.
 
Great advice from everyone, thank you! I've been searching from the MoneySavingExpert website so far, and then MoneySuperMarket, which has harvested some low quotes, but I've now had a look at John Lewis and LV, and I will take a look at A Plan as well. It's good to know when someone has had personal experience of a company.

I just got an online quote from LV and then gave them a call to check about specific items and was told basically what @stevec67 has said above. Even though I gave an example of "some speakers from the seventies worth 3k" (over-estimate) she said they wouldn't have to be singled out, and that they were more concerned about jewellery and furs etc. I will double check that of course. And, as advised by many of you I will do a full inventory with photos and serial numbers, and keep a copy of all that online as Bob suggested. I will also now look out for "old for new" policies as I had not been aware of that. I think the majority of my belongings are still in production, just not the HiFi stuff.

I was actually quite impressed with the person I was talking to at LV as she sounded refreshingly human, if that makes sense. She also suggested taking photographs etc and said that if it came to a claim I could show examples of similar items on ebay or other vendors but I suppose at that point you just hope they agree with something close to your own valuation.


gintonic said:
... a colleague suffered a total loss from a fire. He claimed for everything he owned, and was at least 50% under insured.
Click to expand...

One of the things that I saw on Martin Lewis' MSE insurance guide is to avoid under-covering, so you make a very good point here.

"For contents insurance, underinsuring could lead to you getting less than the value of your items if you need when you claim. Add everything up, including smaller items such as clothes, on a 'new for old' basis.

For example, if you insure £20,000 of possessions when you actually have £40,000, and you need to make a claim, then you'll only have 50% of your contents protected." - from MSE website.


Vinny said:
As a new home-owner, I suspect that your total household contents won't get there, but £100,00 does not go far - over 1000 LPs here, maybe an average of £20 each to replace would be low......................
Click to expand...

Yeah, at this point I don't think I have too much stuff, but the musical items and hifi will add up to quite a bit, and I think my LP's are definitely in the hundreds. I'm going to be busy cleaning them over the next couple of months so I may log them all as I go...!

Thanks again to everyone for the great advice, it's very much appreciated!
 
Good point from Steve67, a lot of private claims are cars, mobiles and jewellery except at Christmas when they go for presents too. Nobody going to lug speakers or amps around these days.

One guy at BAE was burgled twice within 2 months. His car keys were upstairs and they came up looking for them. His daughters were upstairs and that scared him a lot.
After that he left them downstairs on the hall table and they just grabbed them and took the cars. He got one back but they replaced his Range Rover as it had left the country pretty damn quick.
 
Another thing - some items, esp watches, are only insured when they are on your wrist or in a safe. Jewellery too. So your named item tiara has to be on your head or in a safe. No leaving it on the side while you have a shower.

There are no such stipulations for car keys, at least not ordinary cars. Mine are in a drawer, I don't want to have to be the man who gets the location beaten out of him. Or indeed the Sheffield car dealer in Bradfield, a desirable
Peak district village, who got shot by thieves after his Porsche. If they come round to mine with a gun I'll give them the keys and the V5, to hell with it. I'll even give them 10 minutes before I ring 999.
 
@ Harry Crumb. Yes, you make a good point about inventory, photographic/video record of contents. That was recommended to me by either or both John Lewis and Hiscox who I have used in the past.

I seem to recall both weren’t overly bothered about the hifi when I said the replacement cost would be well north of £100k, and as for the record collection they both recommended as detailed an inventory as possible. I have been doing this on and off for I don’t know how long now, up to the Hs on Discogs. They both wanted things like jewellery and art work individually listed with values - I believe we only have one item itemised because everything else falls into the general pool for such items. In a similar vein to the hifi they weren’t overly interested in the piano.

They wanted chapter and verse on security eg window locks, nature of all external door locks (and the fact that not all doors had modern locks wasn’t an issue albeit that may have led to a small increase in premium), alarms, smoke alarms, heat alarms, security cameras and so on.
 
stevec67 said:
Another thing - some items, esp watches, are only insured when they are on your wrist or in a safe. Jewellery too. So your named item tiara has to be on your head or in a safe. No leaving it on the side while you have a shower.

There are no such stipulations for car keys, at least not ordinary cars. Mine are in a drawer, I don't want to have to be the man who gets the location beaten out of him. Or indeed the Sheffield car dealer in Bradfield, a desirable
Peak district village, who got shot by thieves after his Porsche. If they come round to mine with a gun I'll give them the keys and the V5, to hell with it. I'll even give them 10 minutes before I ring 999.
Click to expand...

I’ll even give them ten minutes before pressing the remote detonator button.
 
MichaelC said:
John Lewis home insurance is unlimited on a new for old basis, have double checked this with them on more than one occasion.
Click to expand...

This. Been with them for many years and (touch wood), the premium has hardly moved. I'd previously had bespoke, which was a pain, esp. when changing costly kit. I've had Saga but needed to go to £120K (out of their mainstream) but that was a hassle; or rather, they were.

Individual item valuations are still relevant, but reasonable. Besides, like nearly all contents policies, it's the audio-visual section the hifi and TV comes under, and that's more lax. Oh yes, and records and CDs are covered for certain risks (fire, e.g.)

As long as the hifi doesn't comprise half (or whatever) of your total cover, it's a no-brainer with J.L., or at least, has been.
 
NFU Mutual for us covering inflation adjusted invoice values on a new for old basis annually reviewed.

Don't need to itemise but when you've got a potential abnormal claim it's good to have a record so they have serial numbers; if you have photos as well it can smooth the claim process.

Got the piano valued by my tuner as the 1914 list is out of date.

If it's your first policy watch out for add ons; can be a cheap way to cover bikes, pets, holiday insurance, freezer, public liability etc.

When a DJ blew one of my power amps i got confirmation that the policy covered it; luckily it's a Bryston and the guarantee saved me claiming.

Message being read the small print on any policy!
 
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