A survey from The Co-operative Insurance has displayed that home insurance has increased only slightly over the last ten decades, and still remains good value for money. Looking back to August 1931, premium cover for house insurance would insure against disasters such as fires, house breaking, burglary, storm, floods, burst water tanks, boiler explosions and even accidents to servants.

The cost of a comprehensive home insurance policy that year was “a very reasonable rate” of 5 shillings, per £100 worth of household goods, with a minimum premium of 5 shillings. In decimal currency, that works out to a cost of 25pence, per £100 of cover.

Fast forward to 2008, and we see that the average contents sum insured at The Co-operative Insurance is currently £36,000 and the average contents premium £75.00. This equals out to the cost of only 20pence per £100 of cover, which actually means premiums have decreased compared to those in 1931.

This is despite the fact that home insurance policies now provide a much wider cover, with extra benefits, and protects homeowners against the loss of high value goods, such as electrical items involving flat screens TVs, DVD players, personal computers and video cameras. Therefore, this results in an inflated sum insured far beyond the 1930’s, when the type of property cover included furniture, jewellery, ornaments, tea sets and radio sets.

Financial marketing slogans have also been subject to change over the last 77 years. The Co-operative Insurance findings showed that slogans concerning the nature of home insurance included sayings urging people to protect themselves “From ghosties and goulies long-legatty beasties and things that go bump in the night.”  Current Co-operative slogans contain messages such as ‘good with money’, and cannot claim to be poetic. The fundamental message though is still the same that it pays to insure your belongings.

David Neave, the director of General Insurance at The Co-operative Insurance said that: “This clearly shows that even though the home insurance market has changed significantly with products developed to provide wider cover with greater benefits. The Co-operative Insurance still continues to provide value for money products that are backed with high levels of service at premiums people can afford.”

However, those with small children may find that home insurance does not always work out as good value for money. Adults with toddlers pay out more than £555 million to pay for the damage caused around the home by reckless children, according to a new survey from Abbey Insurance. More than 2.5million homes with children aged between one and five have experienced this problem in the last year alone. One to five years old are 23% more likely to cause damage than 22% of children aged six to ten years old.

A difference in gender comes into play, as boys are twice more likely to cause destruction than girls. Children in Scotland have been named ‘most mischievous,’ causing damage that costs around £625 to repair.

Tony Beckwith, head of Santander Insurance UK stated that: “Dealing with the damage caused by children can be inconvenient, costly and can cause unwanted tension if people do not have the appropriate level of insurance cover.”

The most common damage in the household was to paintwork or wallpaper, 38% of all people who have had the misfortune of suffering damage to their property have needed to redecorate. The second most common form of damage was to furniture reaching 31%, whilst broken ornaments and other items came third at 30%.