Home insurance should cover white elephants

White elephants to the value of over £9.4 billion are cluttering British homes, esure.com home insurance found.

Nearly half of British adults admit they own a sandwich toaster that they don't use, making this appliance the most useless gadget for the third year running in the insurance provider's annual poll.

A nation of dieters, nearly a third of Britons own bathroom scales that they never get onto. And another third of respondents own an unused coffee machine.

These results show that gadgets and gifts worth millions of pounds are gathering dust in boxes or drawers.

But the home insurance provider now warns that forgetting about these could leave homeowners underinsured.

As a nation we’re guilty of boxing up and stockpiling our white elephant household gadgets in lofts, garages, wardrobes and drawers, leaving them out of sight and easily forgotten, warns Nikki Sellers, head of home insurance at esure.com.

But over the years the number and value of these offending items rises, so it’s important to keep an inventory of all your home contents - even your mistake-buys or unwanted gifts - to avoid being left under-insured.

Homes in the north-east are home to the most useless gadgets in the UK, with four in five households admitting they possess at least one item that was rarely, if ever, used since it was purchased.