Clutter cost
Despite prices heading downwards, Sum Insured’s New Zealand Residential Contents Index rose 2.9 per cent in 2014, 1.9 per cent in 2015, and 2 per cent in 2016.
‘‘In general, we are putting more stuff into our homes,’’ Bartlett says, and new houses have been built with bigger floorplans, so it takes more stuff to fill them up. ‘‘CPI says the average price of appliances is going down, but it could be that the quantity of those items we are buying is going up.’’ He says homes once had one large desktop personal computer. Now, everyone in the house has one or more devices for their own personal use. ‘‘The number of shoes that a typical lady would have in her wardrobe is staggering,’’ he said. ‘‘It is nothing for somebody to have 25 pairs of shoes.’’ Contents values vary widely, according to a study of more than 4700 homes in Australia and New Zealand done by Sum Insured last year. Some minimalist and poor households having as little as $20,000 worth of contents, and some $600,000. It found 65 per cent of the households were underinsured. Bartlett said homeowners aren’t underinsuring on purpose, intending to save money on premiums, thinking they could live without a lot of their stuff anyway. ‘‘A common misconception is that people are purposefully underinsured, however, our research has in fact revealed quite the opposite,’’ he says. Bartlett says the average household had almost exactly, on average, half the cover they would need to replace their stuff. If that’s true, many New Zealand homes contain a frightening quantity of stuff. AA Insurance’s average sum insured for contents is $70,000, lower than its $86,780 calculator ‘‘average’’. Amanda Fifield, AA Insurance spokeswoman, says: ‘‘The difference between these two figures may be affected by a number of variables such as customers who flat with others, who have fewer belongings, or who don’t have high-value items.’’ And, she says: ‘‘While the price of some items like electronics may be reducing, others are increasing with advances in technology. The latest iPhone may cost $1400 while an older model may be around $750.’’
The number of shoes that a typical lady would have in her wardrobe is staggering. It is nothing for somebody to have 25 pairs of shoes.’ MIKE BARTLETT