Home Protector offers a broad range of benefits to protect your home, and the things inside it. It is a popular and cost-effective plan because it also offers limited protection for some items that are regularly taken outside the home, such as sports equipment, personal effects, money, and personal documents. It is worth taking a moment to refresh your understanding of the conditions that apply to claims made for loss of or damage to property outside the home. This recent example should be helpful.

After alighting from a crowded MTR train, policyholder Miss Chan discovered that her purse had been stolen. The purse contained a large sum of money, and also personal documents and credit cards. What factors were considered in the settlement of her claim?

Personal effects and personal money are covered for loss or damage anywhere in the world. The maximum limit of compensation for personal effects under the Home Protector insurance policy is HK$2,500 per incident, or HK$5,000 aggregate over each policy year (HK$2,500 for money). However, such loss or damage must arise from "robbery or theft involving forcible, violent and visible means".

In Miss Chan’s case, she appears to have been the victim of a pickpocket. Happily, there was no violence involved and she had no visible injuries. But we were unable to compensate her for the purse and money because the policy conditions were not met.

However, claims for loss or damage to personal documents (passport, identity cards, credit cards etc.) are not subject to the same condition. These are covered against accidental loss or damage anywhere in the world, up to a limit of HK$1,000 for any one occurrence and in aggregate during the period of insurance. Accordingly, we were able to compensate Miss Chan for the cost of replacing these items.