Handbag insurance
Your handbag and all its contents are covered by home insurance inside the home. When you're out and about you’ll need extra personal possessions cover.
Does home insurance cover handbags?
Between money, make-up and gadgets, there's probably a fair bit of financial value to your handbag - especially if the bag itself is designer.
You can expect to get some cover for it on your home insurance, but what's covered will depend on where it's lost or stolen, as well as what you actually lose.
Key points
- Check your contents insurance to find out if your bag and contents are covered within and away from the home
- Ask your insurer about additional cover for outside the home if it's not included as standard
- Check the individual item and total contents limits for personal possessions provide enough cover
Cover inside your home
Most contents insurance usually covers items within the boundaries of your home.
Out of 357 contents insurance policies on Defaqto, 88% cover your belongings in the open (outside but within your property’s boundaries) worth £500 or more and 76% would cover you if your bag and the contents were worth £1,000 or more.[2]
Most home insurance will cover valuables as standard, up to a certain limit. As long as your bag and its contents don’t exceed these limits, they’ll be covered inside your home.
If you have an expensive designer bag, phone or gadget worth more than the single item limit, you’ll have to list them as separate items on your policy to get them covered, which usually costs more.
Not declaring these items to your insurer means you won’t be able to claim for them.
Cover outside your home
Most home insurance policies let you add away from home cover as an optional extra, which includes your bag and its contents.
Personal possessions cover, sometimes known as personal belongings or ‘all risks’ cover, protects the items you regularly carry with you for theft, loss and damage.
Bags, purses, wallets, mobile phones, tablets, sunglasses and jewellery will be included - but check the policy.
If you add personal possessions cover to your policy, make sure the single-item limit is enough to cover any valuable designer handbags you have.
Most policies will also cover your keys and money away from home as standard and some will cover your mobile phone too.
Cash and credit cards may also be covered but sometimes these are specified separately under the 'personal money, credit and debits cards' section of your policy.
Standalone handbag cover
Some insurers offer specialist handbag insurance, which will cover them anywhere in the world.
You’ll need to find out whether this cover applies to the bag’s contents, or just the bag itself.
How much will handbag insurance cost?
Adding cover for your handbag outside your home will vary between insurers.
Listing high-risk items on your contents insurance or adding personal possessions cover is usually cheaper than buying separate policies for individual items.
What to do if your handbag is stolen
To claim for a lost or stolen bag, you’ll need to:
- Report it to the police
- Cancel all your bank and credit cards
- Call your mobile provider to block your account
- If you lose your passport or driving licence, report it to Gov.uk and the DVLA
- Make a list of everything of value in the bag for your insurance claim
- Consider getting the locks changed if your bag contained keys
- Tell your insurer
- Search out any receipts you have for missing items to make your claim easier
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[2] Last checked 16 December 2021