As anyone who has become engaged recently will tell you, engagement rings don’t come cheap! On average, a ring will cost £1200 and yet, according to research carried out by Abbey Home Insurance, a staggering four in ten of us do not have insurance for our rings, whilst another one in ten of us do not know whether or not we are insured. It is estimated that 1.8 million Brits will pop the question this year and Abbey Home Insurance are encouraging people to plan ahead, unromantic though it may seem, and check whether their rings will be covered by their home contents insurance and, if not, to have them insured as soon as they buy them. Around a quarter of engagement rings will be covered by existing policies.

Even if you do follow Abbey’s advice and arrange insurance cover, it is important to review, on a regular basis, the amounts covered by your home insurance policy. Last year, gold rose by 32% and platinum values are at an all-time high, so make sure you are not underinsured. Fewer than 50% of us bother to check the limits of our cover on an annual basis and, with precious metal price hikes like 32%, it is obviously imperative that we spend the time reviewing our policies. If not, we run the risk of ending up seriously out of pocket, should our home be burgled or the ring lost accidentally – in the kitchen or at the gym are favourite places.

The average household contains around £1785 worth of jewellery and three quarters of us have a valuable piece in amongst that total. It is therefore all the more surprising that one in ten of us do not have any contents insurance at all, especially when a quarter of us say that losing our ring would be our worst nightmare.

Are you paying too much for buildings cover? The answer to this question could be "yes", if you are one of the 30% of us who think that rebuild cost is the same as, or more than, the purchase cost of your property.

According to data collected by Confused.com over a six month period, 10% of us think that rebuild cost and purchase price are the same, whilst 20% think that rebuild cost is more than purchase price. In actual fact, a semi-detached house of 742 square feet with a garage, bought for £180,000, would only cost £85,700 to rebuild in the south east of England and £6,000 less in the north east.

If you are buying a property with a mortgage, then your lender will insist on this cover and will specify the rebuild cost. If you are buying the property outright, it would be pretty foolish not to cover the cost of rebuilding your home, should disaster strike in the form, for example, of fire, earthquake, subsidence, falling trees, flood, explosions or even falling aircraft, and you may wish to employ a chartered surveyor to calculate the rebuild cost. To find a reputable surveyor in your area have a look at the RICS website.

Alternatively, a useful way of calculating the appropriate sum to be insured can be found on the Association of British Insurers’ website. The rebuild costs will depend on the floor area of your home, whether it is detached, semi-detached, terraced or a bungalow, the age of the property, and the area in which you live.

Having established the rebuild cost, many insurance companies will index-link the figure so that you do not have to keep recalculating it.

Although home insurers have been pricing very aggressively in recent months, it is more important than ever to know exactly what level of cover you are buying. Although the prices may look very attractive to potential customers, you should be wondering what corners they are cutting in order to deliver these savings.

Home insurance is a necessity for most people, especially homeowners. It covers you against any damage to the building you inhabit and its contents. Certain types of cover may also provide for accidents occurring within the home. Building insurance, which covers the structure itself, is a requirement for anybody with a mortgage. Contents insurance is optional, although recommended. It is usually cheaper to take out both kinds of insurance together, although this is not always the case and it is always worth shopping around.

Over the past 15 years, prices have hardly changed. Accounting for inflation, this makes them significantly cheaper in real terms. According to Sean Gardner, CEO of Moneyexpert.com, the average policy cost £209 in 1995, with the average policy only costing only £215 today.

Price comparison websites have given a great deal of power to consumers. At one stage, loyal customers may have been seen as ‘cash cows’ by insurers. This has now changed, with the public being able to get a picture of the market with one click. The downside of this is that customers may be tempted to opt for the cheapest policy without fully checking what they are buying. Some insurers, for example, will provide cover for loss of or damage to personal possessions outside the home, and others will not. Some policies will also cover costs associated with legal disputes, such as those that might arise with a neighbour. You should also consider whether you require insurance for home office equipment or tools kept in a garden shed.

At the barest minimum, your policy should cover the cost of rebuilding your home should it be destroyed. Although this might seem a little apocalyptic, recent flooding and earthquakes provide sobering reminders of the perils of living on our windy island.

So if your home insurance cover is coming to an end, don’t automatically reinsure with your current provider and don’t just buy the cheapest cover you can find. Shop around, and make sure all your requirements are met by the different policies you are comparing.

For various reasons, access to home contents insurance has always been difficult for residents in social housing. This was brought sharply into focus last summer when the floods caused heavy uninsured losses to the very sectors of society least able to cope financially with their predicament.

After consultations with MP’s, housing associations and local authorities, insurance company Zurich Municipal has introduced a new scheme for residents of social housing in an attempt to widen access to the insurance market. This comes as part of Zurich Municipal’s support for the Government’s initiatives for social inclusion as detailed in the recent report “Financial inclusion: an action plan for 2008-11”.

Tenants are often unaware that insuring their contents is their own responsibility and not that of their landlord. Even those who do realise what they should be doing are often fazed by the whole process of taking out insurance, in particular the prospect of calculating the value of their possessions, and so chose to do nothing. Under Zurich’s scheme, the premium is calculated according to the number of bedrooms in the property.

Many tenants do not have bank accounts and may be unable to finance a yearly or monthly payment and so Zurich have arranged for weekly payments in cash to be accepted. For those without access to the internet, policies can be taken out over the telephone.

With the UK facing so many freak weather conditions, it is alarming to know that over a million private renters have no contents insurance, despite the fact that a third of them estimate the value of their contents to be over ten thousand pounds.

A few weeks ago, parts of the UK were bracing themselves for winds of up to 80mph and the threat of coastal flooding. Abbey Insurance reported double their normal level of calls from anxious members of the public wanting to check their insurance cover and claims rose by 55% to the highest level since last summer when violent storms hit parts of the country.

On top of the damage caused by the storms, claims arising from last month’s earthquake are expected to amount to £30 million, making hard pressed insurance companies more likely to increase premiums to recoup their losses. Not all areas have been equally hit, so the advice from Confused.com is to shop around for a competitive premium.

With natural disasters such as the earthquake and freak weather conditions, the need for good home insurance has never been greater. Last summer, applications for home insurance rose by 300% as a result of the storms and in the case of one badly hit area the increase was a staggering 1700%.

However, 1.78 million homeowners are still without insurance, whilst 0.6 million of us are so laid back that we do not even know whether we are covered. Perhaps surprisingly, only 2% of the uninsured group cite financial reasons for the lack of cover, with 39% saying that they do not feel that it is necessary. 2.3 million homes in the UK are built on flood plains so it is to be hoped that the 39% turning a blind eye to the risks of natural disasters are not amongst them.

The recent weather conditions have also highlighted the importance of good insurance cover for your vehicle, which can be badly damaged in a storm, and also for travel insurance, in case your arrangements are subject to cancellation.