A student's guide to the best insurance deals
Don't be suckered into pricey and pointless insurance policies. Use our checklist before joining up with an insurance company
Relax - and don't be suckered into pricey or often pointless car (laptop, home, bicycle) insurance deals. Photograph: Alamy
Your laptop
Valuables, such as a laptop, camera, and even your bedding and clothes, are likely to be included on your parents' home contents policy, even though you've carted them off to university. If you normally live with your parents out of term-time, the items are simply classified as contents "away" from the home. Your parents' policy will typically have a total value limit of £5,000, with a maximum of £1,500 per single item.
But there are caveats; insurers may only pay out if the belongings are kept in a locked room. If your laptop is nicked from a cafe, they're unlikely to. What's more, some insurers have upper limits of £1,000, or even less. When you come to make a claim, insurers will want evidence of forced entry. But Aviva says: "We don't have any particular rules about 'communal areas', so if your son or daughter's TV was in the main living room of the student house and it was stolen that would be covered. We would just need proof that it belonged to the insured and, again, would need to see a forced entry if burglary."
If you throw open the doors, hold a big party and let anyone in, an insurer won't pay out if you've been stupid enough not to secure your valuables.
If you want fuller cover – including your laptop in the cafe – then ask your parents to add personal belongings insurance to their policy. This is massively cheaper than buying an independent policy yourself. Aviva says it will add £2,000 worth of personal belongings to your parents' policy for £15 upwards. When Money asked Endsleigh for a standalone policy for a student in London for £3,000 contents including £1,000 for a laptop, the quote came back at £186.
If your parents are out of the equation, you may still not have to pay a penny. Around 80 universites have basic contents insurance cover included in the weekly rent at halls of residence.
Failing that, shop around. JSInsurance.co.uk offers particularly cheap (£35-£45) student deals.
Your bicycle
Bicycles on streets won't be covered by your parents' home contents insurance. Once again, the cheapest deal is to add it separately to their policy – Aviva says it will cost from £10, and cover you for loss anywhere in the world. But insurers will generally only pay if the bike is stolen after being secured to an immovable object (ie: railings). For a standalone policy, try Environmental Transport Association (eta.co.uk). It charges around £24 a year to insure a £300 bike. Or buy an old bike and a very expensive lock - and save on the insurance.
Your phone
The main risk is "airtime abuse" – where the thief racks-up huge bills with calls overseas – but the majority of mobile phone insurance policies don't cover this, or only pay out for the first £100-£150. In reality, you risk a bill of £1,000 or more – see today's back page story in Bachelor and Brignall. It's better to take a sim-only pay-as-you-go deal and not expose yourself to the risk. And then you can safely forget mobile phone cover – which in Money's opinion is one of the worst value financial deals in the market.
Your car
If you are one of the increasing number of students with cars, then your parents must be well-off. Car insurance for under-25s remains hugely expensive.
In reality, four out of 10 parents engage in the illegal practice of "fronting," where the son or daughter is a named second driver on their policy, when the child is actually the main driver or owner of the vehicle.
Most believe that this is harmless and easy to get away with. But insurers usually have no problem identifying a fronted policy when a claim is made. Something as simple as whose credit card is used regularly to buy petrol, or the contents of the car and CD player, can establish the true driver/owner.
If students (and their parents) want to make real savings, they need to look at a handful of non-standard policies which reduce the risk (and hence the premium) by imposing restrictions on driving habits.
For example, insurethebox.com rewards low-mileage drivers who agree to fitting a telematics device, known as a "clear box", which measures and reports back on the mileage and how well the car is driven.
Other than that, there's not much choice but to go through the standard comparison sites such as moneysupermarket.com and confused.com. Expect premiums for an 18-year-old to be around £3,000.
If your car is your mum's or dad's old banger, it will be worth paying for breakdown cover. The RAC says young drivers aged 18-25 are 60% more likely to run out of petrol and three times more likely to get locked out of their car compared with older members.
Get fully comp breakdown cover starting at around £40 from providers such as rescuemycar.com and firstcallmotorbreakdown.co.uk. Or try pay-and-reclaim services such as autoaidbreakdown.co.uk
Your holiday
Depending on which bank account you go with, you may get free add-on travel insurance, so check that first. That said, paying extra for "premium" bank accounts is usually not worth it.
First, ask yourself if the trip you're going on really requires travel insurance. If you're hopping over to Paris or Barcelona for a long weekend (how do students afford that?) then get yourself an Ehic card first. It gives you access to the same state-provided healthcare as a resident of the country you are visiting. Go to ehic.org.uk.
Remember, your belongings, if kept safe in the hotel room, will be covered under your parents' home contents policy, if they have one. If you don't buy insurance, the only real risk is if you die or need ferrying back to the UK for whatever reason. That's what repatriation cover is for.
Longer summer-break travel is not covered by annual multi-trip insurance policies, which tend to be limited to a maximum of 30 days cover for any single trip. You'll have to buy a specialist backpacker policy instead (and it will cost £100 upwards).