Increasing home contents cover for Christmas and other religious holidays

Do I really need to insure Christmas presents?

Usually, you don’t need to insure your Christmas presents, but it’s definitely worth thinking about the cover you do have and if it will be sufficient. Unfortunately, not everyone has festive cheer on their minds during the holidays, and over Christmas homes can be more at risk of burglary. With a house full of presents, your home is extra attractive to criminals.

UK crime figures show that the total number of thefts over the festive period in England and Wales rose to 6,278 in 2016/17 – well over 10% up from the same period in 2015/16. The same statistics showed that each day of the holidays, criminals committed an average of 448 burglaries.

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Is it possible to increase home contents cover over the holidays?

any home insurance providers do, in fact, increase their home insurance contents limits over the festive period as standard. That’s reassuring if you’re with one of those providers, but you need to check your policy to find out if you get this extra cover included automatically. This is usually referred to as “festive” or “seasonal” uplift and would most likely be in the contents section of your policy, so have a look if you’re not sure.

Even among the insurance providers that do offer the extra cover, how they apply it can be quite different. You need to check how much extra cover is offered, and the dates that this applies. Some increases last for the whole of December while others may be for just a few days. 

Is it possible to vary the amount of cover at other times?

If you don’t celebrate Christmas, most insurance providers will offer you a temporary increase in cover for alternative religious holidays instead. It’s worth calling your insurance provider to discuss your policy so that you can vary the cover amount at the right time of year for you.

Additionally, if you’ve a special birthday or family wedding coming up, it could mean more presents! For peace of mind, you might want to call your insurance provider to increase your level of cover – either temporarily or permanently, as needed. For any valuable items like jewellery, laptops and general electronics, it’s worth checking to see if you need to add them individually to the policy.  

We ask you to add any valuable items worth more than £1,500 to your quote individually if you want to make sure they’re covered. Take into account things like an engagement ring, which could easily exceed this limit.