Looking after your possessions
Lets hope this doesn’t happen…
Your laptop
Valuables, such as a laptop, camera, and even your bedding and clothes, are likely to be included on your parents’ home contents policy, even though you’ve carted them off to university. If you normally live with your parents out of term-time, the items are simply classified as contents “away” from the home. Your parents’ policy will typically have a total value limit of £5,000, with a maximum of £1,500 per single item.
Insurers may only pay out if the belongings are kept in a locked room. If your laptop is nicked whilst you’re in Mcdonalds, they’re unlikely to. Some insurers also have limits of £1,000, or even less. When you come to make a claim, insurers will want evidence of forced entry and usually proof of purchase and that it belongs to you.
If you hold a big party and let anyone in, an insurer won’t pay out if you’ve been stupid enough not to lock your room. (It happened to a friend of mine.)
If you want cover for more incidents – including your phone on the bus – then ask your parents to add personal belongings insurance to their policy. This almost always going to be a lot quicker than purchasing insurance yourself!
If your parents won’t do it for you, quite a few universities already have basic contents cover in their halls of residence, talk to your university for more details.
Failing that, shop around. Try Endsleigh or Protect Your Bubble
Your bicycle
Bikes kept on the street won’t be covered by your parents policy, the cheapest way to insure your bike is usually to add it to their policy or buy an old bike and a very expensive lock – and save on the insurance.
Try Endsleigh , Protect Your Bubble or ETA
Your phone
The main risk is someone racking up a massive bill on your phone, especially if you have a contract phone, so ensure if you are covering it that you have sufficient cover. Also bear in mind some policies don’t accept iPhones or have a separate policy for iPhones, so make sure you read before you buy!
Try Endsleigh or Protect Your Bubble
Your car
In reality, four out of 10 parents engage in the illegal practice of “fronting,” where the son or daughter is a named second driver on their policy, when the child is actually the main driver or owner of the vehicle.
insurethebox.com rewards low-mileage drivers who agree to fitting a device, which measures and reports back on the mileage and how well the car is driven.
Other than that, there’s not much choice but to go through the standard comparison sites such as moneysupermarket.com and confused.com.
If you have an old banger, it will be worth paying for breakdown cover. Get breakdown cover from providers such as Rescue My Car, Auto Aid Breakdown and First Call Motor Breakdown.
Your holiday
Depending on your bank account you may already have insurance for trips away, however if you don’t already have it, it’s probably not worth getting with your bank account, as these normally end up being more expensive.
First ask yourself If you really need insurance? A day trip to paris? Then perhaps not… If you are travelling in the EU then get yourself an Ehic card first. It gives you access to the same state-provided healthcare as a resident of the country you are visiting.
Your belongings, if kept safe in the hotel room, will usually be covered under your parents’ home contents policy, if they have one. If you don’t buy insurance, the only real risk is if you pass away or need shipping back to the UK for some reason.
Longer travel is not covered by annual multi-trip insurance policies, which tend to be limited to a maximum of 30 days cover for any single trip. If you go travelling around the world you’ll probably have to buy a specialist backpacker policy instead. (It’s a lot more expensive!)
Try Insure For Travel, Infinity Insurance, Primary Insurance, Endsleigh or Protect Your Bubble