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Get a quoteWhy you can trust our contents insurance reviews
Expert analysis
We rated 44 elements of contents cover, including for accidental damage, theft and for valuable single items.
Best Buys
We picked policies with high levels of cover, from insurers with good records for claims acceptance and complaints.
Home contents insurance covers the cost of replacing belongings in your home if they're damaged, destroyed or stolen.
You can buy contents insurance as a standalone policy or as part of a combined home insurance policy with buildings insurance.
We've analysed 78 contents insurance policies from dozens of providers. Here, we reveal our scores and our Best Buy policies.
Please note that the information in this article is for information purposes only and does not constitute advice. Please refer to the particular terms and conditions of an insurer before committing to any financial products.
You can search for a policy in our table and click on the links to see our full reviews of insurers.
| Get a quote | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 90% | Check that you're getting a great deal and search for a new home insurance policy using the service provided by Confused.com. *Some policies may not be available on confused.com – see our insurer review pages for more information | ||||
| 85% | |||||
| 83% | |||||
| 82% | |||||
| 80% | |||||
| 79% | |||||
| 79% |
Last updated: September 2025. Next update: September 2026. The contents score is based on our experts' rating of the insurance policy. See our full methodology.
NFU Mutual's Bespoke cover is designed for owners of high-value homes covering more than £150,000 worth of contents. It covers cash in the home up to £10,000. It also covers damage and theft of contents in the open up to £50,000.
90%
of 78 contents policies
NFU Mutual's standard policy covers digital downloads up to £5,000. It also covers business equipment up to £60,000.
78%
of 78 contents policies
NatWest Elite is available online and over the phone, but isn't on comparison websites. Its contents cover increases automatically by 10% during religious festivals, weddings, and a month before and after the birth of a child. It also covers contents temporarily stored away from the home up to £10,000.
77%
of 78 contents policies
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Get a quoteAs a general rule, 'contents' are the items you'd take with you if you moved home.
These include, but are not limited to:
There are three main types of contents insurance policies:
For all types of home insurance, if you need to make a claim, your provider will settle this on either a 'new-for-old' or 'indemnity' basis.
New-for-old cover means your home insurer will pay for a new product of equivalent value if your insured item is damaged or stolen.
Indemnity cover takes into account wear and tear on the items you claim for, which reduces the amount you'll get. For example, while it may cost £800 to replace your sofa, you might only get £150 if it's 10 years old with rips and stains.
Since the payout on a new-for-old policy tends to be higher, it can be more expensive than an indemnity policy.
We think that for most people, contents insurance is well worth considering. However, the obvious drawback is that it costs money, so give some thought to what your specific needs are.
Our contents insurance calculator can help you work out the combined value of your possessions. All else being equal, it's probably not worth paying for £100,000 of cover if you only need £10,000. But if you underinsure, your insurer may not pay out the full amount you need in a claim.
Check if you're already covered on someone else's policy. Lots of policies, for example, contain student cover, which covers a member of a household even while they're temporarily living away from home to study.
Check what other cover you have. You may have other forms of insurance protecting some of your possessions, such as gadget cover or mobile phone insurance.
Whereas some would want comprehensive insurance protecting against accidental damage, urgent repairs (home emergency cover), and cover for the possessions carried while out and about (personal possessions cover), others will be satisfied with more basic cover. Most policies have optional features that can be added or tweaked to ensure it meets your requirements.
One alternative to owning contents insurance is self-insuring. This is essentially putting money into a savings account for the purpose of repairing or replacing your belongings.
Doing so properly means thinking carefully about the combined value of what you own and setting aside money regularly in dedicated savings to build up your reserve quickly.
If you self-insure, you're effectively taking on the risk that you'd otherwise be paying an insurer to shoulder. You might have enough put aside to replace a damaged computer, but a catastrophic event such as a fire or flood has the potential to cost tens of thousands of pounds in damage.
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Before you start looking for contents insurance quotes, you need to work out the value of your belongings. Our contents insurance calculator will help.
Dean Sobers, Which? insurance expert, says:
Many people think that most insurance policies are similar in their levels of cover. Which? research back in October 2024 found that two thirds of consumers believe this to be the case.
The scores we awarded 78 contents policies in our latest analysis – ranging from 44% and 90% – show that this simply isn't true. But while our scores outline overall levels of cover, the detail is where you could get caught out.
A tenth of policies we analysed don't cover theft of contents from the open (for example, on the grounds of your property rather than inside your home), a fifth won't cover damage to your contents caused by your pets and a quarter won't cover guests' belongings.
One of the rare areas of consensus was cover for the contents of your freezer, which all 78 policies weirdly seemed to agree was fundamental and offered some level of cover for.
Policy variations are defensible. Different customers can have significantly different requirements. But it means you can't really get by on an assumption that insurers or their policies are a much-of-a-muchness proposition.
Check the T&Cs before purchasing your cover to make sure there aren't gaping holes in areas you consider important.
Our contents score is a measure of how comprehensive each policy's contents cover is.
In July 2025, we surveyed 35 insurance companies about the levels of cover in their policies. We rated 44 elements of contents cover, and 25 home insurance features that apply to both contents and buildings cover, such as admin fees. The policy score reflects how well the policy did overall. The higher it is, the more comprehensive the cover.
Certain elements are weighted to have more or less of an impact on the policy score, based on the general level of importance we think they have.
Our Best Buy recommendation recognises the individual products that stood out as being the most comprehensive in our analysis.
It doesn't reflect customer service (although you can see which home insurers were also rated highly by customers in our best home insurance guide). However, we won't name a provider a Best Buy where there's evidence – either from our surveys or from Financial Conduct Authority data – of poor service or a poorer-than-average record of paying claims.
Policies named as Best Buys for contents cover have a minimum policy score of 71%.
We also look at how consistently good the cover is. To make the cut, a policy needs to have scored at least three out of five points in two thirds of the areas we've rated.
Additionally, all Best Buy contents policies must have – or make available – the following levels of cover as a minimum:
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