How Much Contents Insurance Do You Need? A Quick Estimate

This is the fast way to sanity-check whether your contents cover is roughly right. For the full explainer on what contents insurance is and how it works, see our complete guide to contents insurance explained. This post is about one practical question: how much cover do you actually need?

Key takeaways

• Your sum insured should reflect the replacement cost of everything you own at today's prices.
• A quick category-by-category tally gets you a realistic figure in a few minutes.
• The total almost always surprises people, because the small stuff adds up.

A quick category estimate

Go room by room and add up rough replacement costs by category. The figures below are broad ranges in your local currency, to show the relative weight of each category. Actual numbers vary widely by household and by market, so treat them as a starting point, not a quote.

• Electronics: televisions, computers, phones, gaming, audio. Often a large share of the total.
• Furniture: beds, sofas, tables, storage. Usually the single biggest category.
• Kitchen and appliances: fridge, oven, dishwasher, cookware, and small appliances.
• Clothing and linen: the most underestimated category, because a full household of clothing is worth far more than people think.
• Tools and outdoor: garden, garage, sporting, and hobby equipment. Easy to forget, often valuable.

Add the categories together and you have a rough replacement total. We explain why the right basis is replacement cost, not what you paid, in sum insured vs replacement value.

Why the number surprises people

Most people guess low, and there is a predictable reason: we remember the big, obvious items and forget the long tail of smaller belongings that makes up the bulk of the value. This is the root cause of underinsurance, and we unpack the psychology in why we underestimate what we own.

Around the world

The principle is identical everywhere: base your cover on what it would cost to replace your belongings new, at today's prices. What differs is the detail, such as single-item limits on valuables and whether your policy uses new-for-old or indemnity valuation. Wherever you are, the safe approach is to estimate from an actual tally rather than a guess, and to confirm the figure with your insurer.

From rough guess to real number

A category estimate is a good sanity check, but the reliable figure comes from knowing what you actually own. That is what a home inventory gives you.

WHIG turns the estimate into a real number. You record a short video walkthrough, and it builds a valued list of your belongings and totals it, estimating replacement costs from current retail pricing. You get a figure to take to your insurer instead of a guess. WHIG does not recommend a sum insured, and the values are estimates, not professional valuations. See how WHIG works.