Survey

Introduction

Sum Insured conducts ongoing research into the level of home contents cover in Australia and New Zealand.

The research work looks at both existing levels of home contents insurance cover carried by consumers as well as the actual replacement cost of householders contents. 

Methodology

Survey respondents are required to answer questions over the web using Cordell's Residential Valuer tool. These questions relate to the location, age, size and quality of their home. The details are then used to produce a Dynamic Elemental Cost Model (DECM) of the respondents home. 

Responses

To date a total of over 30,000 people have participated in the survey. 

Results

In summary, 65.6% of respondent's home contents were underinsured, by an average of $40,300 or %. 

Follow Up Survey

As a follow up to this work Sum Insured conducted a survey of approximately 1,000 of its own customers to determine people's preparedness to increase their amount of insurance cover. To add weight to the findings Sum Insured mystery shopped six of the major Insurance companies who were offering home contents insurance and recorded the cost of insuring a property for an additional $40,000 worth of cover. The average cost of this additional insurance was $41.00 per annum. 20% of the survey respondents were then contacted and asked the following question:- "If you found out your home contents was underinsured, through a reputable independent source, by the industry average of 56.7%, would you be prepared to spend an additional $41 per annum to be insured for the correct replacement cost?"

94% of the sample answered "Yes" to this question.