Contents valuation checklist: make sure your contents insurance still fits

How underinsurance plays out at claim time

Suppose your real contents value is €80,000, but you only insured €50,000. You have €20,000 in damage. The insurer applies the proportionality rule: €50,000 / €80,000 × €20,000 = €12,500. You receive €7,500 less than you expected, despite paying premium for years.

This applies to partial claims too, not only total loss. A burglary netting €8,000 or water damage of €5,000 is where underinsurance hits hardest, because you have to cover the shortfall yourself.

What belongs in the replacement value?

Contents insurers work with replacement value: what it costs to buy everything again at today's prices, not what you paid years ago. That means counting every room — including the ones you forget.

• Living room: furniture, television, lighting, decoration, artwork.
• Bedrooms: beds, wardrobes, clothing and accessories.
• Kitchen: appliances not built into the fixtures (microwave, coffee machine, etc.).
• Home office: laptop, monitor, printer, desk, cameras.
• Storage and garage: bike, tools, garden furniture, sports equipment.
• Attic: packed items you forget about but that together add up to hundreds of euros.

Walk through the estimate step by step

Checklist: are you likely underinsured?

• Your estimate is older than a year and you have bought new things since then.
• You now work from home and have more electronics than when you took out the policy.
• You moved in with a partner — two households together almost always exceed what one policy covered.
• Your attic or storage is full but was never included in the estimate.
• Your insured amount is a round number you chose at some point without a careful calculation.

New value versus depreciated value

Recalculate your contents after any major purchase or life change. That keeps you from sitting on a stale insured value for years while your actual contents have long since grown.