How much contents insurance do I need?

Enough to replace everything you own at today's prices. The best way is a room-by-room inventory, adding up furniture, appliances, electronics, clothing and valuables, because most people badly underestimate the total.

Should I insure for replacement or current value?

Most New Zealand contents policies are replacement value, meaning new-for-old, so estimate what it would cost to buy everything new, not what your used items would fetch.

What about high-value items?

Jewellery, art, bikes and collectibles often have per-item limits and may need to be specified separately. Note them and check your policy's limits so they are fully covered.

Contents Insurance Value Calculator

This calculator helps you build a realistic figure for your home contents sum insured by adding up the value of your belongings category by category. Contents insurance in New Zealand is almost always replacement value, meaning it pays to buy your things new, yet most people pick a round number off the top of their head and end up badly underinsured, only discovering the gap after a fire or burglary. The cure is an inventory, and breaking it into categories makes the job far less daunting and far more accurate. You enter an estimate for each group, furniture, whiteware and appliances, electronics and technology, clothing and shoes, beds and bedding, kitchenware, tools and garage, and jewellery and valuables, and the calculator totals them into a contents sum insured. The figures add up faster than expected once you picture replacing everything at current shop prices, including the dozens of small items that quietly cost a fortune to rebuy. Remember that high-value items such as jewellery, bikes, art and collectibles often carry per-item limits and may need to be specified separately on the policy, so note them and check those limits. Use the total as a sound basis for your cover, and review it whenever you make big purchases.

Furniture

Whiteware and appliances

Electronics and tech

Clothing and shoes

Beds and bedding

Kitchenware

Tools and garage

Jewellery and valuables

$60,000

estimated contents sum insured (replacement value)

Estimate replacement, not second-hand, value. High-value items may have per-item limits and need specifying. Estimate only.

How it works

The calculator adds together your estimates for each category to produce a total contents sum insured. Working category by category captures the long tail of small items that a single guess always misses, which is why room-by-room inventories almost always come out higher than people expect.

Worked example

Adding 12,000 for furniture, 8,000 for appliances, 9,000 for electronics, 10,000 for clothing, 5,000 for beds, 4,000 for kitchenware, 6,000 for tools and 6,000 for valuables gives a contents sum insured of about 60,000 dollars.

Related calculators

Sum Insured vs Replacement: building cover.
Excess vs Premium Trade-Off: excess choices.
Home Insurance Calculator: house cover.
Budget Calculator: plan spending.

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