[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":304},["ShallowReactive",2],{"academy-piece-insurance-how-much-cover-do-you-need":3,"academy-pillar-insurance":114,"academy-piece-related-insurance-how-much-cover-do-you-need":130,"academy-piece-explore-more-insurance-how-much-cover-do-you-need":303},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"composite":96,"datePublished":97,"description":12,"disclosure":98,"exploreMore":99,"extension":100,"furtherReading":101,"meta":102,"navigation":96,"order":103,"path":104,"pillar":105,"related":106,"seo":109,"slug":110,"stem":111,"summary":112,"__hash__":113},"academyPieces\u002Facademy-pieces\u002Finsurance\u002Fhow-much-cover-do-you-need.md","How Much Contents Cover Do You Actually Need?",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":88},"minimark",[9,13,18,21,24,28,31,54,57,61,67,70,73,76,80,83],[10,11,12],"p",{},"Knowing you might be underinsured is only half the problem. The 90-second check is\ndesigned to surface the doubt — but \"you're probably underinsured\" isn't a number\nyou can actually put on a policy. This is the part that comes after: how you\nactually arrive at a real figure, instead of guessing and hoping it's close enough.",[14,15,17],"h2",{"id":16},"two-ways-to-get-to-a-number-and-why-one-of-them-is-usually-wrong","Two ways to get to a number, and why one of them is usually wrong",[10,19,20],{},"There are really only two methods. The first is room-by-room estimation: walk\nthrough your home, mentally tally what's in each room, and add it up. It's fast,\nand it's what almost everyone actually does when a renewal form asks for a sum\ninsured. It's also the method that reliably produces a number that's too low —\nnot because people are careless, but because estimating from memory quietly skips\nwhole categories rather than individual items.",[10,22,23],{},"The second method is a running, itemised total — building the number from an\nactual record of what you own, a little at a time, rather than trying to hold the\nwhole house in your head at once. It takes longer to set up. It doesn't rely on\nremembering everything in one sitting, which is exactly where the first method\nbreaks down.",[14,25,27],{"id":26},"where-room-by-room-estimation-quietly-goes-wrong","Where room-by-room estimation quietly goes wrong",[10,29,30],{},"It's rarely the big furniture that gets missed — a sofa, a bed, a dining table are\neasy to picture and easy to price roughly. What gets left out is almost always the\nsame handful of categories:",[32,33,34,42,48],"ul",{},[35,36,37,41],"li",{},[38,39,40],"strong",{},"The loft or garage."," Storage space, by definition, holds things you don't see\ndaily — decorations, tools, luggage, sports equipment, the box of things from the\nlast house move that never got unpacked.",[35,43,44,47],{},[38,45,46],{},"Small electronics, individually and collectively."," A single phone charger or a\npair of headphones feels too small to count. Add up every charger, cable,\nspeaker, and small gadget in an average home, and the total is rarely small.",[35,49,50,53],{},[38,51,52],{},"Duplicates and \"everyday\" items."," Towels, bedding, kitchenware, clothing —\nthings you own enough of that you stopped noticing the total.",[10,55,56],{},"None of this is a personal failing. It's simply what happens when a number comes\nfrom memory under time pressure, rather than from actually counting.",[14,58,60],{"id":59},"a-worked-example","A worked example",[10,62,63],{},[64,65,66],"em",{},"The following is an illustrative composite, not a real household's figures —\nbuilt to show how the method changes the number, not to report a real inventory.",[10,68,69],{},"Picture a modest two-bedroom home. Estimated quickly, room by room, from memory,\nthe total might land somewhere around £18,000 — living room furniture, a bed in\neach bedroom, a kitchen's worth of appliances, some clothing and electronics.\nThat's the number most people would write on a renewal form.",[10,71,72],{},"Now count properly, room by room, item by item, including the categories above.\nThe living room and bedrooms don't change much — but the loft turns up storage\nboxes, old furniture, and seasonal items worth another couple of thousand pounds.\nThe garage holds tools, a bike, and overflow storage worth another thousand or so.\nSmall electronics — chargers, a games console, headphones, a router, several years\nof accumulated cables and gadgets — add a few hundred more than expected. The\nactual total often lands closer to £24,000–£26,000: meaningfully higher than the\nquick estimate, not because anything unusual was found, but because counting\nproperly surfaces categories that memory skips by default.",[10,74,75],{},"That gap — between the number you'd guess and the number that's actually true — is\nunderinsurance in practice, before any claim ever tests it.",[14,77,79],{"id":78},"the-fix-is-counting-not-guessing-harder","The fix is counting, not guessing harder",[10,81,82],{},"You don't need a more careful guess. You need an actual record — built a little at\na time, as you go, rather than reconstructed under pressure in one sitting. That's\nthe entire premise behind HausKeep's approach: photograph an item, note a realistic\nvalue, and your running total builds itself in the background, category by\ncategory, so the number you eventually give an insurer reflects what you actually\nown — not what you remembered on a Tuesday evening filling in a form. (Which?'s\nguide, referenced elsewhere on this pillar, is a good complement here for\nunderstanding what your cover actually pays out once the sum insured itself is\nright — this piece is about getting the number correct in the first place.)",[10,84,85],{},[38,86,87],{},"A guess made once, under time pressure, is how underinsurance starts. Counting\nproperly — even slowly, even a little at a time — is how it stops.",{"title":89,"searchDepth":90,"depth":90,"links":91},"",2,[92,93,94,95],{"id":16,"depth":90,"text":17},{"id":26,"depth":90,"text":27},{"id":59,"depth":90,"text":60},{"id":78,"depth":90,"text":79},true,"2026-08-13","The worked example below is an illustrative composite, not a real customer's actual inventory — built to show how the counting method changes the number, not to report a real household's figures.",[],"md",[],{},5,"\u002Facademy-pieces\u002Finsurance\u002Fhow-much-cover-do-you-need","insurance",[107,108],"90-second-check","composite-story",{"title":5,"description":12},"how-much-cover-do-you-need","academy-pieces\u002Finsurance\u002Fhow-much-cover-do-you-need","The 90-second check tells you if you might be underinsured. This is the method for arriving at the real number.","bGo7PY-dgu6CfmGXjaRxEDsXW9DA9TnDPSbBDGYNRro",{"id":115,"title":116,"body":117,"description":121,"extension":100,"eyebrow":124,"meta":125,"navigation":96,"path":126,"seo":127,"slug":105,"stem":128,"__hash__":129},"academyPillars\u002Facademy-pillars\u002Finsurance.md","Protecting What You Own",{"type":7,"value":118,"toc":122},[119],[10,120,121],{},"Most homes are either uninsured or underinsured, and almost nobody finds\nout which camp they're in until they need to. This pillar is about closing\nthat gap before it matters — building an honest, current record of what\nyou own, so your policy's sum insured actually reflects it, and so a claim\nis never the first time you're asked to reconstruct your home from memory.",{"title":89,"searchDepth":90,"depth":90,"links":123},[],"Pillar · Insurance & underinsurance",{},"\u002Facademy-pillars\u002Finsurance",{"title":116,"description":121},"academy-pillars\u002Finsurance","KiDXYzwP8xJAwIlz0zfrbnqIUQJiDWTblTdx4oNS1do",[131,237],{"id":132,"title":133,"body":134,"composite":219,"datePublished":220,"description":138,"disclosure":221,"exploreMore":222,"extension":100,"furtherReading":223,"meta":228,"navigation":96,"order":90,"path":229,"pillar":105,"related":230,"seo":233,"slug":107,"stem":234,"summary":235,"__hash__":236},"academyPieces\u002Facademy-pieces\u002Finsurance\u002F90-second-check.md","3 in 4 UK Homes Are Underinsured. Here's the 90-Second Way to Check If Yours Is One of Them.",{"type":7,"value":135,"toc":214},[136,139,146,150,157,160,164,167,199,202,206,209],[10,137,138],{},"Read that number again. Three in four. Not \"some people.\" Not \"the\ncareless ones.\" Most homes — statistically, probably yours.",[10,140,141,142,145],{},"That figure comes from research by Go.Compare, and the reason behind it\nis more interesting than the number itself: it's not that people don't\nbother insuring their homes. It's that ",[38,143,144],{},"less than a quarter of people\ncan accurately calculate what their possessions are actually worth.","\nUnderinsurance, for most households, isn't a decision. It's a guess\nnobody ever went back to check.",[14,147,149],{"id":148},"why-i-have-contents-insurance-tells-you-almost-nothing","Why \"I have contents insurance\" tells you almost nothing",[10,151,152,153,156],{},"A policy number confirms you ",[64,154,155],{},"have"," insurance. It says nothing about\nwhether the sum insured — the figure your payout is capped at — still\nmatches what your home actually contains. And homes change constantly:\nyou renovate a room, replace old furniture with better furniture,\naccumulate the ordinary accumulation of years — while the number on your\npolicy, set once at a renewal years ago, quietly stays exactly where it\nwas.",[10,158,159],{},"Separately, it's worth knowing that research from the Association of\nBritish Insurers has consistently found around one in four UK households\ncarry no contents insurance at all — a related but different problem\nfrom underinsurance. Between the two groups, the honest picture is stark:\nmost UK homes are either uninsured or under-insured, and almost nobody\nfinds out which camp they're in until they need to.",[14,161,163],{"id":162},"the-90-second-check","The 90-second check",[10,165,166],{},"You don't need a spreadsheet or a financial advisor for this. Just ask\nyourself, honestly:",[168,169,170,180,194],"ol",{},[35,171,172,175,176,179],{},[38,173,174],{},"When did you last actually update your sum insured?"," Not renewed —\n",[64,177,178],{},"updated the number."," If the answer is \"I don't remember\" or \"never,\"\nthat's the whole diagnosis right there.",[35,181,182,185,186,189,190,193],{},[38,183,184],{},"Could you list, from memory, everything in your living room right\nnow, with a rough replacement value for each?"," Most people get three\nor four items in before they stall. That gap — between what you\n",[64,187,188],{},"know"," you own and what you could ",[64,191,192],{},"prove"," you own — is underinsurance,\nin practice.",[35,195,196],{},[38,197,198],{},"If your kitchen flooded tonight, would your policy's sum insured\nactually cover replacing everything in it — at today's prices, not\nthe prices when you bought it?",[10,200,201],{},"If any of those gave you a moment's pause, you're not alone — you're\nstatistically the majority. One writer at NerdWallet actually tested\nthis on herself: she listed everything she could remember in her own\nhome office, reached 51 items, and felt reasonably confident. Then she\nwalked back into the room and found 25 more she'd missed — nearly a\nthird of her real inventory, undercounted from memory, in a room she\nuses every day. As one professional loss adjuster put it, what people\naccumulate over the years often adds up to real money, and remembering\nall of it under pressure is close to impossible.",[14,203,205],{"id":204},"the-fix-costs-nothing-and-takes-minutes-not-hours","The fix costs nothing and takes minutes, not hours",[10,207,208],{},"You don't need to overhaul anything tonight. You need to start doing what\nalmost nobody does: build a real, current record of what you actually\nown, a little at a time, as you go — not reconstructed under pressure\nduring a claim. That's the entire premise behind HausKeep: photograph an\nitem, note what it's worth, and let a real, exportable inventory build\nitself quietly in the background, ready the day you actually need it.",[10,210,211],{},[38,212,213],{},"Three in four isn't a rare outcome. It's the default — right up until\nsomeone actually checks. Ninety seconds of honesty is usually enough to\nfind out which side of that number you're really on.",{"title":89,"searchDepth":90,"depth":90,"links":215},[216,217,218],{"id":148,"depth":90,"text":149},{"id":162,"depth":90,"text":163},{"id":204,"depth":90,"text":205},false,"2026-07-18",null,[],[224],{"label":225,"url":226,"note":227},"Which?'s contents insurance comparison guide","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.which.co.uk\u002Fmoney\u002Finsurance\u002Fhome-and-mobile-insurance\u002Fhome-insurance-explained\u002Fcontents-insurance-explained-aFqaX6Q67MwX","Walks through how sum-insured actually works if you want to check your own policy properly, not just take our word for it.",{},"\u002Facademy-pieces\u002Finsurance\u002F90-second-check",[231,232,108,110],"the-day-you-find-out","condition-of-average",{"title":133,"description":138},"academy-pieces\u002Finsurance\u002F90-second-check","A three-question check — using research from Go.Compare and the ABI — for whether your sum insured still matches what you actually own.","KztbBjnn6-2zqvaNfmXQcucdp2O_xMZyzQIZxGRYHwA",{"id":238,"title":239,"body":240,"composite":96,"datePublished":220,"description":244,"disclosure":291,"exploreMore":292,"extension":100,"furtherReading":293,"meta":294,"navigation":96,"order":295,"path":296,"pillar":105,"related":297,"seo":299,"slug":108,"stem":300,"summary":301,"__hash__":302},"academyPieces\u002Facademy-pieces\u002Finsurance\u002Fcomposite-story.md","She Thought Her Contents Policy Covered Everything. Then Her Flat Flooded.",{"type":7,"value":241,"toc":286},[242,245,248,252,255,258,262,265,272,276,283],[10,243,244],{},"Sarah had contents insurance for six years. She never made a claim, never\nhad a reason to think about the number on her policy, and if you'd asked\nher, she'd have told you — honestly, confidently — that she was covered.",[10,246,247],{},"Then, on an ordinary Tuesday, the flat above hers had a washing machine\nfail overnight. By the time anyone noticed, water had come through her\nceiling, across her living room floor, and into the cabinet where she\nkept, among other things, her late father's watch collection.",[14,249,251],{"id":250},"the-claim-wasnt-the-hard-part-remembering-was","The claim wasn't the hard part. Remembering was.",[10,253,254],{},"The damage itself was bad enough — furniture, flooring, a rug she'd had\nsince university. But the part that actually caught her off guard was\nwhat came after: the insurer's loss adjuster asked her to list everything\nthat had been affected, with an estimated value for each, from memory,\nunder time pressure, while she was still finding somewhere to stay for\nthe next few weeks.",[10,256,257],{},"She could remember the big things. The sofa. The rug. But the smaller\nthings — the exact number of watches, which ones, what they were\nactually worth today rather than what her father paid decades earlier —\nthat came apart the moment she tried to reconstruct it from memory alone.\nNot because she didn't care about them. Because nobody, under that kind\nof pressure, remembers a home in that kind of detail.",[14,259,261],{"id":260},"the-policy-paid-out-just-not-for-everything","The policy paid out. Just not for everything.",[10,263,264],{},"This is the part that surprises people most: Sarah wasn't uninsured. Her\nclaim wasn't rejected. She got a payout. It just didn't come close to\ncovering everything that was actually lost — because a payout can only\nreflect what you can actually document, and in the moment it mattered\nmost, documentation was the one thing she didn't have.",[10,266,267,268,271],{},"That's the quiet, unglamorous truth about underinsurance: it rarely looks\nlike a dramatic denial. It looks like ",[64,269,270],{},"almost enough"," — a settlement that\ncovers some of it, leaving you to cover the rest yourself, at the exact\nmoment you can least afford to.",[14,273,275],{"id":274},"what-would-have-made-the-difference","What would have made the difference",[10,277,278,279,282],{},"Not more insurance. Not a bigger premium. Just a record — photographs,\napproximate values, something that existed ",[64,280,281],{},"before"," the flood, not\nreconstructed after it. Something that turns \"I think there were six\nwatches, maybe seven\" into an actual, confident answer.",[10,284,285],{},"That's the entire idea behind building an inventory with HausKeep: not\nbecause disaster is coming, but because on the one day it might, you want\nthe answer to already exist — quietly, in the background, built a little\nat a time on ordinary Tuesdays, long before the one that isn't.",{"title":89,"searchDepth":90,"depth":90,"links":287},[288,289,290],{"id":250,"depth":90,"text":251},{"id":260,"depth":90,"text":261},{"id":274,"depth":90,"text":275},"The following is an illustrative, composite scenario — not a real customer account — built to walk through a genuinely common situation, not to describe one specific person.",[],[],{},3,"\u002Facademy-pieces\u002Finsurance\u002Fcomposite-story",[231,107,232,110,298],"before-you-call-your-insurer",{"title":239,"description":244},"academy-pieces\u002Finsurance\u002Fcomposite-story","An illustrative, composite scenario walking through what underinsurance actually looks like in the middle of a real claim.","JEWjpIAGqCTuE0Hqo9pg5hXLFIhoXuOj1LEXqtimni8",[],1786598363178]