Upgrading a home with a few high-end features can vastly increase the satisfaction you get out of living it it. But if you’re going to make an investment in a luxury upgrade, you’ll need to be certain that it will be covered by your home insurance.
Let’s take a look at the steps you’ll need to take in order to protect your investment.
Assessing the Value of Your Luxury Upgrades
Certain features will need to be professionally appraised before an insurer will consider them. This isn’t just a matter of totting up all of the money you’ve spent on appliances for your new kitchen. It’s also a matter of providing an independent assessment of the true value of the new feature.
This will provide the insurer with the reassurance they need to cover you appropriately.
Updating Your Home Insurance Policy to Reflect Enhancements
Once you know how much your luxury upgrades will cost to reinstate, you can tell your insurer about the changes. If you fail to do this, and you need to make a claim, then it might be that your insurer refuses to pay out.
Understanding Coverage for High-Value Items and Materials
In many cases, home insurers will ask whether you want to take out additional cover for any items worth more than, say, a thousand pounds. You should provide a description for high-value appliances like televisions, fridge-freezers, and computer equipment, and list them separately.
Your insurer might offer extra protection for items that you’re going to remove from the property. Laptops, jewellery and musical instruments might all qualify.
It’s worth paying attention to the total amount payable under your content’s insurance, and making sure that the value of your non-listed possessions falls beneath this threshold. If it doesn’t, then you may be unable to claim for them in the event of a loss.
Implementing Security Measures to Protect Your Investments
If you’re concerned about the threat posed by thieves, then installing extra security measures might help you to deter them – and secure a prosecution in the event of a break-in. You might consider security lights, high-end cameras, alarms, and off-site cloud storage for the footage you capture.
The cost of modern security equipment is low enough to make it worth considering, especially if your budget extends to luxury upgrades of the kind we’ve been discussing. A few hundred extra pounds spent on security systems can help to protect a much larger investment in luxury items!
