Handbag Safety Tips For The Festive Season

It’s official – us girls love our handbags and we spend an average of £6,100 on buying them during our lifetime. Like Santa and Rudolph or crackers and corny jokes, you and your handbag just go together. Inside you’re likely to carry all the essentials you need to live your life – making it invaluable to you whether it’s a designer It-bag worth ££thousands or a more modest piece of arm-candy. No wonder the thought of losing our handbag makes us break out in a cold sweat!

With the whirl of Christmas parties in full swing, your handbag is even more indispensable – where else will you keep that essential lippy and a pair of flats for the long walk home? But the festivities also pose extra danger for your trusted tote. From being targeted by thieves and getting left behind in the back of a taxi to falling victim to spilt coffee or wine, your handbag, and the contents, are at risk. So what can you do to protect it (and sleep more soundly each night)? Here’s our top five tips:

1) Keep it with you
It might sound obvious, but we’re all guilty of taking our bag off our shoulder and slinging it on the ground. It can then get kicked about and before you know it, a thief has stooped down to pick it up whilst you remain oblivious. It’s also easier to leave it behind if it isn’t close to you. So, hand it to the cloakroom in a restaurant or club or hook it on your chair next to you so you can be sure to keep it safe.

2) Zip it
If your bag has a closed top zip it will be much trickier for a thief to reach in and take contents without you noticing. Zip your bag up every time and keep small valuables that are easy to pickpocket, like your phone or purse, double-zipped in an internal pocket if your bag has one.

3) Try to stay alert until you get back home
After a late night of boozy partying, it can be easy to relax back and let your mind doze on the journey home until it’s time for your stop. But always bear in mind that every time someone gets off the bus or the Tube, they could be carrying your bag with them.

4) Double check that you’ve got everything before you leave
If you’re heading on to a club after the office party, make sure you’ve not left anything behind before you leave. Discovering you’ve not got everything with you, and struggling to remember where you last had it, will put a major damper on the party spirit.

5) Get peace of mind with handbag insurance
Your handbag and its contents are not always covered by your ordinary household insurance. Whilst that’s fine if you’re the average bloke who doesn’t own a bag, it is not so fine if you’re not and you go to make a claim. Double-check the level of your cover with your insurer. This is especially important to check if you’ve bought insurance online because the cheapest options often have loopholes that mean you’re not insured for everything you might assume.

What can handbag insurance cover me for?

Handbag insurance can cover the cost of replacing your designer handbag if it gets damaged, lost or stolen as well as the contents. With the average handbag holding at least one item of tech and your purse with cash and credit cards, the value contents can mount up pretty quickly.

Will your insurance cover you to replace your bag with a new one?

Not all insurance policies will replace your bag with a brand new one, so if you own a designer bag it’s worth double-checking with your broker. As well as a soaring market in the value of vintage bags, the prices of new classic handbags have also shot up. Chanel announced their 2017 prices last month, with increases of nearly 12% on their Chanel Jumbo Classic Flap Bag, which will now set you back £4,450 (up from £3,980 in 2016). Great news if you’ve bought one before the price increase, not so great if yours is stolen, damaged or lost and your insurer won’t pay out for the price of buying a new one.

Tips for fuss-free claims

Take pictures of your bag and of you with your bag, as well as keeping hold of any receipts for luxury bag purchases. This makes it easier to prove the condition of your bag and make your claim.

Hassle-free handbag insurance tailored to your needs

Whether you’re looking to insure your classic Birkin or just want a little extra peace of mind that you’ve got the right level of cover when you’re out on the town, talk to our expert, friendly team on about specialist handbag insurance.

We can chat you through your options to find you the right cover at the best price. Get in touch on 0800 917 9522 today.