Now that's amusing!

[mrsbrown]

One of my tasks for my RDO is to sort out my house insurance. I nearly paid it the other day and then noticed that the insured amount seems low. So I went to a few website looking for calculators to help me work out what it should be.

There seems to be a standard calculator, used by most of the insurance companies I referred to:

http://www.suncorp.com.au/calculators/contents_form.asp
http://www.gio.com.au/calculators/contents_form.asp
aami
NRMA

For every one of them I get a database error on the second page. AFTER entering the details for a house with 4 bedrooms and 6 occupants!

For my own interest I also tried it with fewer bedrooms and occupants - they are still broken!

I really don't want to have to use a pen and paper to sort out this thing but it's due today so I might have to.

btw, I'm planning to increase my excess to $1000 instead of $200. It will save me about $300 in yearly premiums so has a payback period of less than 4 years. I've never claimed on this insurance, so I see it as mostly "oh my god, the house is gone" type insurance. Does anyone have an opinion?

Comments

[sootysmudge.livejournal.com]

I increased my excess from $200 to $400, l'm not sure l'd want to go as high as $1,000. And yes l tried to use one of those web based calculators and it wouldn't work for me either.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Given what I know of you, your house, and your finances, hrmmm... I'm not sure. I usually figure my excess as what I could get hold of immediately and (if I had to borrow to do so) pay off within 2-3 months at the most. However, thinking about the maths on it, as long as the interest on $1000 is less than the difference in premiums, then you come out ahead. Even if you have to bung it on a high-interest credit card and can't pay it off for ages.

Providing you don't have multiple $1000 incidents, of course. *touches wood*

I say go for it.