Personal Liability Insurance

Dangermac wrote: »

I agree with Mattymoo. Without trying to teach my granny how to suck eggs, it will almost certainly be cheaper for you to obtain a household policy (Buildings & Contents) with a higher excess, than to obtain a personal liability policy. I dont know of any insurer who offers this. Any insurer who did offer such a policy is likely to be charging £500 + as insurers notoriously lose money on liability insurance. It is unlikely that you will get a cheap £50 policy anywhere for personal liability. I agree with self-insurance for things like pets/boilers/car breakdown etc, but a large household claim could be very expensive. Unless you are very cash-rich - which you may well be - can you really afford to pay for a large fire/flood/vandalism/escape of water claim etc. It is always the unexpected that trips people up. Claims do happen - it is a fact of life. It may be worth reviewing your principal - they can be expensive!!!

A fact of life is that insurance companies have to make a profit as well as cover their overheads - this means (as I'm sure you know) that the cost of my claim for example, for contents is not just the cost of my contents -even if old for new - but also the cost of admin including investigating and sometimes paying fraudulent claims plus enough profit to satisfy shareholders - I don't begrudge this, it's a fact of life.

For myself (and I'm talking about contents only here as I am not cash rich enough to cover a buildings claim) I do not have a vast amount of stuff. Most policies seem to have a maximum sum insured, the one I was looking at last night had upto £75000 with a maximum of £7500 for electicals - this is much higher than I need so I have to not only pay for the claim+admin+profit, I'm also subsidising people who have more valuable contents than I do.

Looking at the likelihood of a claim - I'm not convinced (obviously ) that it is a fact of life, companies must turn a profit which means that most people will put more into their insurance than will be claim from it. The more insurance that a person doesn't have, the more statistically likely that they will gain, so a person may lose out by not having pet insurance but may gain by not having dental insurance, contents insurance, life insurance etc.

I absolutely do not advocate that my philosophy is suitable for everyone, I have no debts and so am able to put any premiums saved into ISAs. As far as I'm concerned they are then 'invisible' to me - only available for insurance claims and not for holidays or other luxuries.

As I said before - if I had less savings, I would have more insurance. If I were extremely wealthy, I would probably have none That is a whole different ball game to not having insurance because you'd rather spend your money somewhere else. And as a final insurance, if my pot become dangerously depleted, I can get insurance :cool:

Here's a question though - why is personal liability so cheap when added onto a home insurance policy and yet so expensive as a stand alone policy?

Sou

Actually Dangermac I did take the comment about not listening to advice as just a little bit rude and personal. Not name calling rude but not entirely necessary either. I was also somewhat surprised as my response in post #8 to both mattymoos and woody wonders was that

I think, though, I'll probably be looking at some basic contents insurance but at least you've given me some ideas on where to look.

. To be honest it reminded me of the heavily pro-insurance stance of a lot of the brokers I used to work with, understandable really as it is their livelihood.

To be fair Dangermac, I have nothing against contents insurance per se, I could have used pet insurance or dental insurance in my example. However, 6 years ago I was divorced and left with nothing except an empty house (and I mean empty - just carpets and a second hand 3 seater sofa a friend lent me while beds for me and the kids were on order) - and was just glad for the opportuntity to start again. I'm not that interested in stuff, it's people I love . Just to underline that you don't know much about me and so cannot assume that I don't know how much it costs to replace items (or the emotional side of having to do so).

I asked the question because I wanted advice, I have some interesting things to ponder, the idea of getting stand alone personal liability is obviously a no-goer but I like to have some information before I go to a broker, I think you'll be somewhat surprised to learn that last night I was looking into contents insurance with personal liability (I was surprised how many actually offer legal expenses but not Personal Liability!)

Do I listen to advice? yes, I listen to all of it. In the end though I make the decision and take the rap for the outcome. Too many people (not necessarily you) feel that their advice = right thing to do. Well it might be the person offering advice but not for the person asking for it. If that makes me strong willed then so be it

Thanks for your advice though - very detailed and useful.

Sou