Scotland
No home contents insurance
Key points
- One in six households lacked home contents insurance in 2005, similar to in 1999.
- A third of the poorest households are uninsured compared to virtually no households on above-average incomes.
- Such households will clearly often have difficulties being able to afford to replace any stolen goods. Although Scottish statistics are not available, data from England and Wales (see the UK indicator on home contents insurance) suggests that households which lack home contents insurance are about three times as likely to be burgled as those with such insurance.
- Almost half of all those in rented accommodation do not have home contents insurance compared to virtually no owner occupiers.
- One in five people from routine and manual occupations lack home contents insurance, compared to virtually no one from managerial and professional occupations.
- The proportion of households without home contents insurance is higher in the four cities than elsewhere.
Graph 1: Over time
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Graph 2: By type of area
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Graph 3: By income
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Graph 4: By housing tenure
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Graph 5: By social class
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Definitions and data sources
All five graphs show the proportion of households lacking home contents insurance.
The first graph shows change over time.
In the second graph, the data is broken down by the type of area using a six category urban-rural hierarchy stretching from the four cities at one end to remote rural areas at the other. The definitions are: 'the four cities': Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen; 'other urban': population between 10,000 and 125,000; 'small accessible': population between 3,000 to 10,000 and within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of more than 10,000; 'small remote': population between 3,000 to 10,000 and more than 30 minutes drive of a settlement of more than 10,000; 'accessible rural': population less than 3,000 and within 30 minutes drive of a settlement of more than 10,000; and 'remote rural': population less than 3,000 and more than 30 minutes drive of a settlement of more than 10,000.
In the third graph, the data is broken down by income quintile.
In the fourth graph, the data is broken down by housing tenure.
In the fifth graph, the data is broken down by social class (omitting those whose social class is not known).
The data source for all the graphs is the Scottish Household Survey (SHS). To improve statistical reliability, the data in the second to fifth graphs is the average for the latest three years.
Overall adequacy of the indicator: high. The SHS is a large survey designed to be representative of private households and of the adult population in private households in Scotland. Note, however, that the breakdown by income uses incomes which are not adjusted for household size and thus single person households will be disproportionately represented in the poorest quintile.
External links
See the Centre for Socially Inclusive Services and their report on Access to Financial Services.