What is Proof of Purchase?

Unfortunately there may come a time when you need to make a claim on your insurance policy – after all, that is what it is there for.

Maybe your buildings have been damaged during a break-in, belongings or contents stolen or damaged by water due to a flood or a burst pipe.  Whatever the case, you are out of pocket and your insurance should be able to rectify your situation.

However if you are making a claim for stolen items, who is to say they were there in the first place?  Of course, we trust you but unfortunately there are some people that abuse the trust of insurers and commit or attempt to commit insurance fraud by trying to claim a pay-out for items that haven’t actually been stolen.

So, how can you prove that you did own an item that has been stolen from you?  The best way to prove that you owned an item is to prove that you bought it.  Receipts are perfect for this – that is after all their main reason for existence. This is called Proof of Purchase. However no one really keeps receipts forever and you might have inherited an item, or been given it as a gift so you wouldn’t have receipts for them.  How could you prove your ownership then?

Proving ownership

Photographs are a really good way to prove ownership of items – you couldn’t have taken a picture of something in-situ if you didn’t have it in the first place, could you?  Of course this is pretty useless if something has already been stolen from you but you can make sure you bear this in mind for the future.

For electrical items such as cameras and video recorders etc, it may be sufficient to provide a user manual as your proof of purchase so it’s always worth keeping these safe, just in case.

If you have valuable belongings, take pictures of them, whether they’re old or new and keep hold of your receipts where possible – they could come in handy should you ever have to make a claim.