If you have some experience in the property market, you’re probably aware that several factors can either increase or decrease your home insurance and rental value. Aspects like property size, location, upgrades, usable space, age, and neighbourhood can tremendously impact a property’s insurance for money positively or negatively.
But what about furniture? Does buying the right furniture affect your property worthiness and insurance value? That’s precisely what we’re going to shed light on in this article. We’ll also briefly walk you through some of the best ways to add value to your home.
Know The Difference Between Building Insurance and Home Contents Insurance
The first fundamental thing to understand before renovating your home is understanding the difference between building insurance and home contents insurance. Building insurance insures the structure of the house, including walls, floors, and roofs whereas home contents insurance covers the property you own, such as furniture.
Knowing this difference is important because oftentimes, renovating your home means also adding new furniture or valuables that may have to be added to your insurance for coverage.
Additions to the home increase home value, meaning your insurance has to increase
As previously mentioned, your home insurance premiums will likely increase after your home renovations. If you’re not sure how to choose an insurance, it’s best to get yourself equipped with enough information. After getting pre-approved for your renovation plans, the next step is to finalise the necessary documentation that will ensure that the structure of your home, including your valuables, are adequately insured.
Make sure you document every purchase you make for materials, furniture and even the labour you’ve hired to conduct the upgrades. You should also take pictures of your home before and after renovations. Keeping a detailed record in a safe place (as well as on a cloud storage as a backup) is beneficial for you, and can work in your favour with regards to getting coverage and claiming in the future.
Factors that Affect the Value of Your Property and Insurance
A good deal of factors can influence the cost of your property other than furniture. However, most tenants prioritise a few of them. In short, they’re the aspects that matter more to them.
What determines whether a set of furniture is good or bad for your property’s insurance value? Many properties come into play, including the following.
The Furniture’s Condition
If you take proper care of your furniture, you can make it as good as new and add value to your property insurance. That includes regularly cleaning it with soapy water, polishing, dusting, keeping it out of direct sunlight, re-oiling, and re-waxing. You can also maintain the fabrics by keeping them away from pets and cleaning them with suitable products.
Having pieces of shiny furnishings inside your home can increase its value by a good margin and improve its curb appeal. In contrast, if your furnishing looks old and damaged, it will either not affect the value of the property or decrease it.
How It Goes with the Rest of the Property’s Decor
If your furniture’s style and colours match the rest of the property’s décor and colours, then it’s a good idea to keep it to add value and increase your property’s resale rate. Other than that, it could subconsciously discourage your prospective tenants from buying your property.
Don’t be afraid to compare quotes
Lastly, always be open to shopping around for insurance quotes. Although you might’ve been with your insurer for 10 years, it doesn’t hurt to search the market for a potentially more beneficial policy.
Furniture and decor can be beneficial and add value to your home, however, it’s important to understand the mechanics of how upgrades can affect home insurance in order to be adequately covered.
