Hi Guys
My secure private store room at my apartment that was in the car park got broken into. My husband, we got married in July 2018 had his things stolen from the store room, which included his tools and bike etc.
I have contents insurance and I’ve always held contents insurance and never claimed.
My husband only moved in once we were married and I didn’t update the policy to include him - I completely forgot to be honest.
Is his stuff covered?
Thanks
Yeah, it's your house
his stuffs are yours
your stuffs are yours
Check with your insurer to be sure, but for one specific example I just went to the NRMA Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) and it has the following definition on page 94.
Family is your family members who normally live with you at your
home, including your legal or de facto spouse and any member
of their family who normally lives with you at your home.
So if an NRMA policy defined "Your contents" as "Items that are not permanently attached or fixed to the structure of your home that you or your family own […]" (Page 14) you'd be fine by that wording.
Storage cages aren't always covered by contents insurance. Check your policy to see if it's excluded or not.
Here's what the insurer will say: When he moved he he bought stuff with him of significant value that you should have increased your policy cover. So you are now under-insured and the under-insurance clause will apply. If you were only insured for 50% of the value of the items (i.e. if he had the same value as stuff as you did) then they will only pay 50% of your loss. Under insurance - it gets so many people.
Is that really how it works? I thought they just paid you the value of the claim up to the max amount insured. Ie have $100k of stuff insured for $70k. If they steal $20k worth of stuff you get $20k (sometimes vouchers for replacement items). If the house burns down you get $70k but miss out of the extra $30k.
Just google under insurance, you'll see that how it works. Otherwise I could bet that I'd only lose 10% of my stuff at once and only insure 10% of the value. The thing is I've never specified which 10%, so they count it as everything being insured to only 10% of its value.
I can't see why it wouldn't be… but values will come into play. If you weren't married/relationship it'd be a different story.
The only way you can find out is read your PDS (that's what it is there for). Then ring the insurance company up armed with the info of the PDS and be prepared for a shafting
Hi All
Thanks for the advice - PDS does state that husband is covered even though he isn’t named, any family that permanently resides is covered.
Thankfully i had put a large value to my contents and I have agreed auto increases in cover yearly.
I’ve spoken to the insurance and so far all his items should be covered.
Just an update everything was covered and replaced/settled by the insurance. This included the bikes including the one which was approximately $8k
The value of my contents covered was never questioned by the company probably due to having a large cover and agreeing to yearly increases.
Unless you have specific items covered, I would tend to think that his stuff IS covered