Confused: home emergency cover

mbrijun

Hello money savers,

I currently have a home emergency cover with Homeserve. The consensus on this forum seems to be that they should be avoided as plague. The problem is that not so many companies offer this sort of insurance. I have spoken to British gas and they seem to be quite similar in their pricing to Homeserve. Another place I have gone to is Domestic and General. This is what I would like to get your opinion on:

1. The plumbing/drainage cover with British Gas covers up to £1000. They claim that to fix an average collapsed drain is in the region of £700. Are they correct? Homeserve cover up to £4000 - is that just a marketing trick?

2. Should I get an anual boiler service? Sorry if this sounds lame, I am a fresh homeowner and have not got any experience.

3. Is it worth getting a water supply pipe cover? Even the flagship BG's Homecare 400 does not include it as standard, you have to pay £1.79 a month extra for it.

4. Homeserve are spamming me with letters every few months - is this their standard practice?

Thank you for your thoughts.

Best regards,
Martin

ijgreer

Home emergency is a good product to have, it does work but the terms need to be met. I can advise on point 2, pretty much all products giving cover for a boiler, require you to have an annual service contract and the boiler is under 15 years old.

Hope this helps

dacouch

Home Emergency only covers claims that are an Emergency as defined by the company

mbrijun

ijgreer wrote: »

Home emergency is a good product to have, it does work but the terms need to be met. I can advise on point 2, pretty much all products giving cover for a boiler, require you to have an annual service contract and the boiler is under 15 years old.

Hope this helps

so what you are saying is that unless the boiler is serviced, they may refuse to fix it if it breaks, right?

Any thoughts on point 1?

Thanks.

dacouch

You are only responsible for the drains / pipes within the boundaries of your home (There are some exceptions for older properties).

In some circumstances your home insurance will pay for the damage

mbrijun

dacouch wrote: »

You are only responsible for the drains / pipes within the boundaries of your home (There are some exceptions for older properties).

In some circumstances your home insurance will pay for the damage

Would you agree with BG that £1000 is an adequate cover? Thanks.

dacouch

For a lot of pipes eg a house that does not have a long gap (Eg pipe) from the edge of your boundary to your house it will be enough in most cases.

They tend to repair most damaged drains by inserting a sleeve inside the pipe, they feed this down from one part of the pipe. If there is root ingress (Tree roots growing through the pipes) they may need to cut the tree roots which adds a little to the cost.

If you have trees near your house or pipes you can reduce the chances or root damage by maintaining the trees and keeping their height down (This also reduces the risk of certain tress damaging your foundations)

mbrijun

arranged cover with British Gas and rang Homeserve to cancel. When they heard about the cancellation they have offered me matching prices to BG *and* more cover (storm damage to the roof, pests, locks). Now I am really confused.