Renters cover at £6 a month — my stuff is worth maybe £2,000, so what am I really buying? Home & Renters

The bike is precisely the thing to check and you've already spotted it. Away-from-home cover is usually a separate section with its own limit, and bicycles over a certain value are often specified items you have to name individually and pay extra for. Check the single-article limit too — a £1,200 laptop under a £500 single-item limit is an unpleasant discovery at the worst moment.

The part nobody buys renters cover for, and the part that actually matters: tenant liability. Leave a tap running and wreck the flat below, and the building policy covers the building and then comes looking for you. That's a five-figure exposure sitting behind a £6 policy.

In a flatshare, check whether theft is covered without signs of forced entry. A lot of contents policies require forced entry, and in a shared house with five keys floating around that clause does an enormous amount of work against you.

Claimed for a laptop after a break-in. Paid out fine, took three weeks, and they wanted the original purchase receipt which I of course did not have. Photograph your serial numbers and email yourself the receipts now, not after.

For £2,000 of replaceable stuff and no liability worry I'd self-insure. The liability point above changed my mind for the flat I'm in now, which has a bathroom sitting directly above somebody's kitchen.

Check the excess as well. A £250 excess against a £2,000 total contents value means a lot of realistic claims aren't worth making.