Digital Downloads – Are They Covered by Your Home Contents Insurance?

Movie downloads, MP3 music tracks and software are becoming increasingly popular and can total £1,200 or more for the average household. Moneysupermarket.com has released figures that just three in ten home contents policies will provide sufficient cover for these valuable downloads.

Brits are eagerly downloading a variety of digital products such as online movies, music and software such as iPhone Apps, however moneysupermarket.com has discovered that only a small proportion of owners have good enough home contents insurance to cover these digital products. Read our feature article about this for more information.

With the average home accumulating £1,200 worth of downloads and a further 2 million households (four percent) owning more than £5,000 of downloaded products, having good home contents insurance that covers these investments is clearly important.

Insurers that do provide cover for digital downloads are Halifax (up to £2,000 of cover), Hiscox (up to £2,500) and lv= who cover up to £1000 of cover.

The loss or damage of these valuable downloads can be difficult to rectify, as Julie Owens head of home insurance at moneysupermarket.com, explains:

“Should you lose your downloaded content, some insurers will advise you to contact the site you purchased it from, however, the seller won’t always agree to let you re-download your purchase so you need to check your policy covers this type of content.

“I recommend checking the small print of your policy to find out what you are covered for and to what value. Being underinsured is also a dangerous position to find yourself in – if in doubt, speak to your insurer to find out whether you need to increase your cover for downloaded material. For Brits with an especially high value of digital content it may be worth considering cover from a specialist provider…”