Assurant premium hike.

kazzymac_2

Just an update - received a letter from Assurant today confirming my cancellation of the policy:mad: I called them and they said i had cancelled it when I first called to query the increase in premium which I hadn't! I asked for it to be reinstated and confirmed in writing. I hadn't cancelled it at all but had just called to ask why the premium had risen. I am still unsure what to do as I I could claim if I needed too assuming that this hasn't hasn't messed things up for me. Not impressed at the moment with them.

madkingsoup

I've finally pulled my finger out to check all this. I too got the letter recently from Assurant, upping my premium for covering my "British Insurance Loan Payment Protection" from £6.52 to £9.21, a 41% hike.

I went to the British Insurance website and my premium quote there is actually 64p higher than this!

I went with Assurant at the time, which wasn't the cheapest, because they had fewer exclusions on what they pay out for in the case of illness. The ones recommended by MSE are all now more expensive than the one I have so it must be a general [strike]cartel[/strike] market-wide increase. By all accounts, I'm with the cheapest now. Ho hum...

G

dunstonh

so it must be a general cartel market-wide increase.

Its not. Just the underwriters for their plans put the cost up.

TamTamster

Just been on to Best's website and see they show their policies being mortgage protection. The Assurant policy I had was income protection.

Are you able to get mortgage protection policies for whatever amount you need (and therefore effectively be income protection) or are you only allowed to cover your actual mortgage payment with their policy?

Thanks

Matt

TamTamster

Duh - just noticed the second and third pages of this thread answering this!!

brad_s_uk

I was considering Best Insurance until I read the threads on here about Assurant price hikes and am now a bit confused.

Following a bit of googling, what it looks like to me is that Assurant were providing the insurance for Best Insurance (British Insurance) as confirmed by this article early last year :-

http://www.britishinsurance.com/press-pages/Assurant-provides-British-Insurance-with-protection-suite.html

If you search the Best/British Insurance site through google you can also find old policy wordings that include reference to Assurant as the insurer (with no reference to Aviva).

However, the policy wording that is now directly available and linked to on their site now refers to Aviva (Norwich Union) as the insurer with Paymentshield as the admin. There is no reference to Assurant.

What I'm thinking is that maybe they have switched their insurer from Assurant to Aviva (or maybe Assurant have sold off their business to Aviva).

Can anybody who has had a price hike on here please check the policy when you took it out to see if it makes reference to Assurant? Also could anybody please let us know if you have took out a policy since it has been Aviva and have still had the price hike or still received literature from Assurant later on?

I'm hoping that it's just the cover which was managed by Assurant which is being hit and that the Aviva cover may be ok to take/swap to

I will try and contact them after work to ask them what their official word is on their involvement with Assurant

Thanks

Woby_Tide

I've a letter dated 21st nov 2007 that was notifying of a change of company name from "Bankers Insurance Protection Liminted" to "Assurant General". No mentions of Aviva anywhere

brad_s_uk

A friend of mine today contacted Best Insurance with a query about Assurant and received the following information :-

They have recently changed the underwriters for Mortgage Protection to Norwich Union. Previously these were underwritten by Assurant.

Income and loan policies are still underwritten by Assurant.


So it is confirmed that they have changed their underwriters.

Would still appreciate it if anybody could confirm whether or not they have had a price hike since taking a policy with them following the change to Norwich Union

Thanks

brad_s_uk

Anybody able to confirm regarding Norwich Union and whether they are subject to the price hike? (see above)

Thanks

toyotayaris

Hi thank you for bringing this to the light.

I do not object to increases, I have Stake holder that goes up about 5% each year for my own good.

I should have been more careful when I took out this PPI with Assurant. I missed the small print!!

I applied in June - was quoted £41.63 pence per month. So for the cover this sounded good - took it out and in July they took £41.63 but (without any letter of notification from them) I found that they took out 67.05 pence in August! A hike of around some 63% .

I have complained bitterly and because I informed them that they had not sent me a letter they are going to refund the last month back to the quote and then send me a letter with the new amount increase to go on the next month. I said I was a new customer and should have been told about the possible increases and could I cancel my policy and get any refund - Oh yes was the answer but you will not get any refunds. And they hold the awards for the Insurers of the year 2007 and 2008!

There ought to be law about how much these companies can increase their prices!!