In 2007, the average couple forked out £840 on presents food, drink and decorations during the Christmas period.
However, consumers should be wary that their home insurance may not cover them over the Christmas period if they go over their contents' limit.
Although recent research has shown that people will be cutting back on their Christmas shopping this year because of the credit crunch, consumers should still be looking at their home insurance policies to check that they have sufficient cover for their Christmas purchases and gifts.
As a savvy home insurance buyer, you have probably already purchased an insurance policy offering cover for the total value of your home’s contents should you need to replace everything in the event of total loss from events such as fires and floods.
However, it could be seen as a waste of money to buy cover beyond the total amount of your contents, providing you have made a very reasonable estimate of the cost of replacing ALL of your possessions, especially in these hard times.
As a result, your Christmas purchases will likely push the value of your contents above that for which you have cover and if anything happens during this time, you will lose anything you have spent on presents and other festive goodies.
The good news is that there are ways to protect your purchases this Christmas.
A good proportion of home insurers offer an extra amount of cover for a period of time before and after Christmas as standard.
The majority of these insurers offer 10% extra cover from 1st December until 15th January, but some offer 10%, or a set amount of around £5,000, for a month either side of Christmas.
Direct Line Home Insurance gives customers £5,000 or 10% either side of Christmas, while Tesco Home Insurance and Sainsbury’s Home Insurance offer a 10% increase on cover from 1st December to 15th January for its customers.
Also, Legal & General offers 10% extra cover for one month before and after Christmas.
It would probably be sensible to first check the ‘contents’ section of your home insurance policy’s terms and conditions to see if you automatically get any extra cover over the Christmas period.
If you do, then the next logical step would be to check it is enough cover for the goods you will buy and receive.
If you don’t get extra free cover, or if you don’t have enough additional free cover, the next step would be to talk to your insurer to arrange additional cover to protect your festive goodies.
If your insurance is up for renewal, it may be worth taking time out to compare home insurance policies to see if you can get a new one for the same sort of price but with this extra Christmas cover, remembering of course to make sure that the policy suits your individual needs and circumstances.
Click the link to compare home insurance
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