It’s force of habit to get medical checks to prevent or treat disease, but do you pay the same sort of attention to your finances; in particular, your home insurance?
The truth is that many of us don’t, which can easily leave us underinsured.
This means we may not have adequate coverage to help with the damage or loss as a result of insured events. To help you figure out whether you’ve got the right amount of coverage for you, follow the home insurance health checklist below.
Review your policy
The purpose of having insurance is to help protect yourself and your family from a loss which you might otherwise be able to financially recover from. While many Australians have insurance, many don’t have enough and unfortunately don’t realise until it’s too late. That’s why it’s important to review your policy annually.
Contact our friendly insurance team to see if they have a suitable policy that is adequate for your home and its contents. It should suit your needs and factor in your location and propensity for disaster to strike or break-ins to occur.
When in doubt, ask questions
Insurance can be daunting, but your insurer can help explain the policy limits, deductibles and what’s covered. For example, do you live in a flood prone area and do you know how flood is defined in your policy?
It can vary dramatically between policies so you should ask those types of questions of your insurer. Your local council should also be able to help you determine your risk level for events such as flood and bushfire.
Explore your home in detail
It’s important to record an inventory of your assets regularly by logging the worth of items and estimated replacement costs. Keep receipts, take photos and videos of your contents, and store that information at a secure location. Don’t forget irreplaceable possessions like art, antiques and wine collections either – they will likely need to be separately listed on your policy.
There are plenty of apps and helpful online calculators that can streamline this process for you so check out your app store or ask friendly insurance team.
Know your true worth
Property prices fluctuate and are dependent on the market, but one thing is for sure, if you recently renovated, your home may have increased in value.
If you have refurbished don’t forget to update your policy and add in any additional valuables such as white goods, updated furniture, fixtures, fittings and appliances. It’s also important to remember that building regulations can change regularly, which could impact the costs required to rebuild your home in the unfortunate event of a total loss.
As our lives change, so too do our needs. For this reason, it’s important to regularly assess how much protection you need with this insurance calculator.
Be sure to mark a date in your diary to undertake an insurance health check to see if you could be doing better. A good way to remember this is to schedule the check for the same time as when you receive your insurance renewal letter. This way, if you’re underinsured and want to make changes to your cover, you should contact our friendly insurance team before renewing to ensure details are up to date.
The Capricornian Ltd | ABN 54 087 650 940 | AFSL/Australian Credit Licence 246780 acts under its own AFSL and under an agreement with the issuer Insurance Australia Limited trading as CGU Insurance ABN 11 000 016 722, AFSL 227681. Any advice provided is general advice only and does not take into account your individual objectives, financial situation or needs (“your personal circumstances”). Before using this advice to decide whether to purchase a product, you should consider your personal circumstances, the relevant the Product Disclosure Statement and Target Market Determination.
