Why Valentine's Day Makes Home Insurance Even More Important

For years experts have been advising the British public of the importance of home insurance. However when you think of why you might need home insurance, pictures of last year’s floods or thieves breaking into the grand mansions of premier league footballers maybe what comes to mind. nnYou maybe be able to reason that you don’t live on a flood plain or your house is more cute and cosy than grand designs and therefore home insurance would be just another way to ensure that the big bankers keep getting bigger bonuses. If this is the case you probably wouldn’t expect that St Valentine the patron Saint of Love would put a very good case forward for insuring your home. nnStatistics released by PayPal state that on average this Valentine’s Day, the romantics in this country will spend in total over £1.6 billion pounds on their loved ones. This breaks down to an average spend of £71.25 per person, with single men aged between 25 and 34 spending the most to woo their partners. Direct Line estimates that out of the billions of pounds being spent on gifts £467 million will be spent on jewellery. In some cases the jewellery brought may significantly increase the value of the contents of a home and is much easier to steal than other high value items due to its size. nnWhilst Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to show your loved one how you care, it is worth thinking about protecting any expensive gifts that you buy to avoid heartache later on. It may not be top of the agenda for a romantic Valentine’s Day evening to ring around trying to obtain suitable insurance quotes, but planning ahead will pay dividends if that expensive gift gets lost, stolen or broken later on. Being able to replace something that contains so much sentimental value as well as actually value will help to ease the pain. nnIt is especially important to think about taking out home insurance if you live in rented accommodation. Recent figures from Zurich Insurance say that around £8 billion worth of household possessions are not insured. The majority of those not covered were private renters, ever though they estimated the net worth of their goods to be more than ten thousand pounds per household and with some individuals items costing more than £1500. When asked how long people thought it would take to replace all of their belongings 20% felt it would take a minimum of two years, and 30% felt that they would never get everything back. nnWhen asked why people were deciding not to insure their home, some tenants thought that their possessions were already covered by their landlords insurance and another 25% felt that the risk of losing everything was minimal. However you don’t have to lose everything for home insurance to be worth the money. Just imagine if this year Saint Valentine brought you, your perfect gift, but if it ever was to be lost you may not be able to get it back. n