Yahoo Finance Home insurance: Brits without cover losing £475 to household item damage repairs
Brits fork out 16 times more than the annual cost of accidental cover to repair damaged household items, a study suggests.
Analysis of 3,000 home insurance enquiries, by price comparison site MoneySuperMarket, found 43% of Brits choose not to include accidental damage cover in their policies.
They pay about £475 ($600) to repair or replace damaged items in their homes — even though the annual cost of accidental cover is just £28.53
This is despite consumer research that shows 62% of Brits has damaged an item — or had an item damaged by someone they live with — to the point of needing to be repaired or replaced, over the past decade.
With UK households spending an extra 6.5 hours a day at home on average due to COVID-19 measures, almost one in six (16%) people are concerned about the risk of damaging contents at home.
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This rises to over a quarter (27%) of those living with someone under the age of 18, a third (30%) of who admitted they are concerned their children will damage items around the house with school closures in place.
In line with these concerns, four in five Brits with children at home said they or someone they live with has damaged an item in the last decade, compared with only 53% of those without.
Those living with someone under 18 also paid about three quarters more to cover the cost of repairs than those with no children in the house, at £638.50 compared with £364.30.
Analysing specific age groups, nearly half (49%) of contents insurance enquirers aged 18 to 34 opted not to include accidental damage cover, despite being the age group most likely to say that items had been damaged accidentally at their house.
Three quarters of 18 to 34-year-olds said at least one item had been damaged at home in the past 10 years, compared with just 57% of those aged 35 and over.
In terms of individual items, mobile phones are most likely to be damaged, with two in five households saying this has happened at least once in the past 10 years.
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The 10 household items Brits damage most regularly
Mobile phone (40%)
Carpet/flooring (32%)
Desktop/laptop (29%)
iPad/tablet (24%)
Bed (24%)
Sofa (23%)
TV (22%)
Washing Machine (22%)
Outdoor furniture (21%)
Cooker oven (21%)
“With people spending more time at home due to social distancing measures, there is concern about additional accidental damage occurring — particularly in those households with children at home,” Kate Devine, head of home insurance at MoneySuperMarke, said.
“Ensuring you have a comprehensive home insurance policy in place which includes accidental damage cover will protect you from hefty prices for one-off repairs or replacements, and also give you some peace of mind. Just remember to check the single item limit on your policy and list any household items over that value. Typical items here could be jewelry, but also computers, antiques, musical instruments and designer goods.
She added: “If you do need to make a claim, it is always worth comparing the cost to repair or replace the item against any excess you will need to pay and any loss to your no-claims discount. If you can pay for the repairs yourself your no-claims bonus won’t be affected which may result in lowering your home insurance premium.”
