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CYA: Revisiting my insurance coverage

Although insurance isn’t a huge line in my budget, the peace of mind it provides is invaluable. While my car insurance is pretty sussed and doesn’t require much thought, a couple things have got me rethinking some of my other insurance cover.

Contents insurance

I stumbled across a TradeMe thread the other week in which people were discussing how much contents insurance they had. $100k for a three bedroom house seemed to be the consensus. This was my reaction:

WTF?And then I followed one of the links through to a contents insurance calculator and whizzed through quickly. By our standards, their allowances were a teeny bit insane. $7k for two laptops? A $1500 dryer? $4000 of shoes per person? An expensive china cabinet full of antiques? Nuh uh.

I’m not sure we count as minimalist, but we don’t have a ton of stuff realistically and most of it isn’t worth very much.

To be fair, we probably are a little underinsured (I can’t even remember exactly how much cover we currently have) but hopefully come next renewal, we’ll also have redone the kitchen and may as well roll all those changes up at once. Very little we own was obtained new, but I am definitely aware that should we need to replace it all at once it would be expensive. That said, should we lose everything in one fell swoop, we would still replace things gradually in order to get more for the money. It took about 3 months for us to buy a bedroom set after moving in here (dresser and bedside tables).

A kitchen with a dishwasher, a decent fridge, a gas stove and cabinets not from the 1960s will probably add a significant number to the amount we want to be insured for. Still, the annual premium dropped to around $400 when I became a homeowner, so hopefully it will still be pretty affordable even after increasing the coverage and updating the policy accordingly.

Health insurance

Previously I’ve had a bit of a look into private health insurance – where previous employers offered discounts through Southern Cross (my current one does not) and when I needed my wisdom teeth out. And maybe now once again, since a friend is undergoing expensive dental work after an accident which is only partly covered by ACC.

Every time I’ve reached the conclusion that for me it’s a waste of money, my needs are around optical and dental and the cost of policies just don’t stack up against what I would get back. T might benefit from policies that cover physiotherapy, being both accident and injury prone.

What I would give for a comprehensive health insurance comparison site! Maybe this is an instance where an adviser would actually be worth it.

But I suspect this is something I’m going to put aside yet again. Maybe when kids come into the picture (my two bosses who have kids reckon they’ve got their money’s worth and more from health insurance).

When did you last reconsider your insurance coverage?

2 thoughts on “CYA: Revisiting my insurance coverage

  • Reply Taylor Lee @ Yuppie Millennial August 10, 2016 at 23:15

    There is a minimum level of insurance required by my lender (including liability and possessions). So that’s what I got.

  • Reply Vicki@Make Smarter Decisions August 10, 2016 at 23:40

    We insure everything (other than health) at the lowest level possible and with the highest deductibles possible. We just assume it will be easier to pay for things ourselves rather than to try to make a claim. Luckily we haven’t needed much! We do have a large umbrella policy though – for rental apartments, in case of any catastrophic event.

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