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Handbags are a place to keep valuables, and are often valuables in and of themselves. Handbag insurance can ease the pain by covering you for the repair or replacement costs involved when the unexpected happens.
Depending on the policy, handbag insurance can cover the value of your handbag itself, plus what's in it, when you're at home and when you have the bag out with you.
The handbag-relevant scenarios you can be insured against include (among others) theft and fire, storm and water damage.
There are several ways to insure your handbag, at home and when you're out with it.
Contents insurance
Contents insurance can cover your handbag against lots of insured events, including (crucially) theft.
A straight contents policy will only cover the handbag when it's at the insured address. Because they're made to be taken with us just about everywhere, handbags are a good candidate for portable contents insurance (sometimes called personal effects cover), an optional add-on that will cover your handbag when you have it out with you. Like a contents policy, it will generally allow you to specify the value of items that are worth more than a certain limit (e.g. $1,000).
Home and contents insurance
Did you know that you can insure your handbag with a home and contents insurance policy? If you already have a policy, check to see if your handbag is covered, or you could always switch policies and get one that includes insurance for your handbag.
With home and contents insurance, your handbag will get all the protection straight contents insurance offers, plus cover against damage to your home in general in a long list of insured events.
You can also add personal effects cover to your home and contents policy so that your handbag is covered outside of your home.
Single item insurance
If you have an expensive handbag that's the only thing you want to insure, or one of a few things you want to insure, you could think about single item insurance, which offers similar levels of coverage to other policies but only for selected items.
It can be a cost-effective solution for people in some circumstances, for example, renters.
You should be able to take out portable contents cover as part of your single item insurance policy, too.
Here's the bottom line:
Your handbag doesn't have to be a Hermès to be valuable. Home insurance can protect your handbag and what's in it whether you're at home or on the go.
Just like other valuable items. If you have a high-value handbag, you might need to specify it in your policy to increase the upper limit it's insured for.
As always, you should check what you'll be covered against, and to what amount, in the relevant parts of a policy's Product Disclosure Statement (PDS). Here are some examples of how brands explain cover in their PDS.
When you think about all the things you've carried around with you in your handbag over the years (smartphones, purses, camera, sunglasses, etc), their value adds up.
We're lucky to live in a society where bag-snatching isn't a common occurrence, but thieves all over the world are drawn to handbags, for obvious reasons, and will probably continue to be.
Losing an expensive handbag (and its contents) in a theft, fire or water damage situation can be a hard pill to swallow.
If calamity strikes, though, you'll be better off with handbag insurance than without it.
Yes, but be sure to check the maximum amount the insurer pays out for handbags and to specify the value of your handbag in your policy if that value is higher than the sum insured.
Home insurance can cover your handbag in surprising ways. Here are some examples of when you can be covered:
For most insurance policies, there are some instances where you won't be covered, these are called general exclusions. Here are some reasons why you might not be covered:
Picture: GettyImages
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