Research demonstrates that young people are thrice as likely as others to become victims of burglary, with a third of university students falling victim to crime annually. It is therefore vital that, as a student, you get student contents insurance for your possessions.
Students who are living in student halls often wrongly assume that their university has insured their contents or that they are insured on their parents’ home insurance.
There are certain insurers who do add students to their parents’ contents policy. This is not automatic and there could be restrictions. It is usually cheaper for students to buy their own insurance.
If you are in students halls, it is imperative you take out student halls insurance.
We may presume that we do not own valuable possessions. However, the majority of students have laptops, mobile phones and iPods, averaging at £4,000 worth of possessions, which are undoubtedly worth insuring.
What is covered by Student Halls Insurance?
Student halls insurance ought to cover your belongings against loss or damage due to fire, theft, vandalism, flood, storm and burst pipes. Specific policies enable you to select the items you want to insure. It is crucial that you do insure valuable items, such as, computer equipment.
What Does Students Halls Insurance not Cover?
Many students have a bike or a musical instrument, or both and they can be relatively costly. You will need to check the small print as specific policies do not offer cover for bikes and musical instruments.
Furthermore, ‘walk-in theft’ is a standard exclusion. This refers to when theft occurs without any evidence of forced entry. Hence, if you are in halls of residence, you may wish to arrange cover for walk-in theft given that it can be quite simple for thieves to get into the premises without use of force.
Do I need to add anything to my policy?
Most insurance companies are willing to extend the students halls insurance policy to cover accidental damage. It may cost a little bit more. Nonetheless, this is a very useful addition to student halls insurance; say you host a party in your room and someone damages something, you will be covered.