MEMORIES MEAN THE MOST
Insurance covers the cost of replacing many of our possessions, but what about irreplaceable items?
Imagine. Your home is about to be burn down, or flood, or even collapse due to an earthquake. If you could only rescue one item, which would you take? Faced with disaster, it seems we would opt to save irreplaceable objects of sentimental value rather top of the range laptops or sound systems. But women and men can differ on priorities.
Both men and women would abandon jewellery and technology to save family pictures, says insurer Admiral whose new survey shows if only allowed one item, it would be photo albums.
After photos, however, the genders think differently. Women prioritise wedding and engagement rings, framed photographs, and items made by children or grandchildren. Women also want to save certificates – birth, marriage and education successes
– despite easy replacability.
Men place lower value on wedding jewellery – many men do not wear any
– but want to save watches, laptops, and vinyl collections.
Both women and men rate mobile phones as the sixth most important item to salvage.
Surprisingly, those aged 18-24 are sentimental about books – these are in their top five treasured possessions.
And those aged 25-34 are keen to keep exam certificates because these are still important for job applications. This age group is also the most enthusiastic in saving audio equipment – even though it can often be replaced with better and should be covered by insurance.
The bad news for insurers is that two out of three would rather ditch expensive items for sentimental things – which can mean bigger claims.
The point of all this is to check you know where the most important items for you are kept. And that you are adequately insured.
The good news is, home insurance premiums seem to have stopped increasing. Over the past three months, they have fallen slightly – although remain higher than a year ago, according to the AA’s British Insurance Premium Index. This measures buildings cover, contents insurance and combined policies. The average quote for a combined buildings and contents policy increased by 4.8% or £7.36 to £161.75 over the last year, although over the first quarter of 2018 fell by 0.3% or 42p. The increase is largely due to higher insurance premium tax – it has doubled since 2015 – and insurer fears of climate change.