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.
... a colleague suffered a total loss from a fire. He claimed for everything he owned, and was at least 50% under insured.
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.
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......................
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!