"Free" travel insurance?

missile

My home insurance is up for renewal. I have trawled the comparison sites for the cheapest. I believe, cheapest is not always best

My quote from Direct Line Home Insurance Plus is £123.90 and includes travel insurance.

My travel policy is also up for renewal. Would the Direct Line cover be as good as a stand alone travel policy?

Any thoughts or suggestions, would be appreciated :beer:

dacouch

Its not a bad policy and probably a fair bit better than your current policy if you bought your current one on price alone.

They have an amusing exclusion in there "loss or damage because you climbed, jumped or moved from one balcony to another, regardless of the height of the balcony" They must have had one or more big medical claims from people climbing / jumping from balcony to balcony.

So no balcony jumping for Missile me thinks

missile

Many thanks for your prompt reply. My current policy is contents only with Aviva and the renewal is £233.73. I had a claim last year and problems with Asprea, I am not too happy with Aviva and I am looking for a dependable rather than a cheap insurer.

I have a quote from Hiscox @ £242.39 and I am awaiting a quote from NFU.

Would you suggest anyone else?

I have given up balcony hopping.

dacouch

Hiscox is the better policy without doubt, but is the peace of mind worth the extra £110 to you, NFU are not to bad. The CIS policies are not bad now days and you can get about £50 cash back via Quidco.

Out of the "normal" Insurers I'm a big fan of Legal and General, I always use them for myself, family and friends. Their approved building contractors are a bit hit and miss, but as you have sampled the delights of Aspera I doubt you would ever allow an Insurers builders near your home again anyway.

P.S No one has moaned about NU / Aviva for a couple of weeks, maybe their change of name succeeded in confusing the people who had problems with them. I imagine next stop will be for Aspera to rename them selves after a bus company....From Aspera to Stage Coach sounds a good one

dacouch

On the Aviva subject missile. Do you know one of the reasons why the people at the top think that everything in the Aviva/NU garden is so rosy. They do a random survey of telephone callers on their experience with NU/Aviva. The only problem is the call centre staff chose who to suggest the survey to.

When / if you ring NU / Aviva again, be really polite to the customer services rep and make a point of thanking them and saying how efficient they have been. At the end of the call they will ask you if you have a few minutes to take a customer service survey. I know of this as I speak to them loads, I'm always polite and make a point of thanking the staff if they have handled the call well. 90% of the time on these calls they will try and put me through to the suvey. On a normal call where I don't thank them or have a problem with what they are telling me they will never ever suggest putting me through to the survey.

Hey Presto their survey results show the vast majority of their customers are happy with Aviva according to their survey. As has been pointed out in another thread on surveys today surveys are so easy to manipulate. As someone once said "Lies, damned lies and statistics"

Try the polite bit when you ring them and see if they put you through to the survey, I'll be amazed if they don't

missile

dacouch wrote: »

From Aspera to Stage Coach sounds a good one

.. Their annual party to be held at the OK Corral.:rotfl:

Direct Line £123.90
Legal & General £135.94
NFU @ £210.00
Hiscox £242.39

They all seem to offer value for money. I have no idea which would be best? I like to have peace of mind, NFU have a local agent to help, but in practise would this really be an advantage?

I always try to be polite, even to the recorded voice message :A Good manners costs nothing.

I would suggest those at the top are well aware that customer feedback is "managed". Many companies play games to promote their image and often delude themselves and I guess Aviva are no worse than many others?

dacouch

If it was my money I would go with L&G as I use them a lot, being a broker I have not used Direct Line but when I have come accross them they seem to be good.

The free travel looks tempting.

If money was not an object then it would definately be Hiscox as if you need to claim Hiscox service is exactly how you would expect a claims service to be if you were to draw up how a claim should be handled. If your thinking about the NFU policy then I would pay the little extra and get the Hiscox as the cover is much much wider as well as the claims service.

I've only dealt with NFU when dealing with their third party claims department and I can honestly say it was the worse I have ever dealt with. However from what I have heard their service to their own customers is very good. The lesson there is do not have an accident with an NFU client unless they have stopped outsouring their claims.

The Stage Coach name and its connection to cowboys is entirely appropriate!

FH_Brit

DA you and me both - NFU were terrible to deal with - they kept throwing the Data Protection Act at me - when will people that deal with the DPA realize that it does not affect the biller of an insurance claim and in any case talking about a claim number does not release any information - that's why they issue claim numbers (other reasons too).

Anyhow this year I have dealt with NFU for three claims here in Orlando and they are still ongoing.

Missile - a local agent is no advantage if you need travel claim help when you are away from home! Any agent will do, local to home or not.

FH_Brit

DA - Stage Coach? - New on me - do they do travel ins? Should I beware?

missile

I am leaning toward Direct Line.

It is the cheapest quote <LOL> and has several features which could be of benefit to me in my circumstances>
1. "free" travel insurance. I do a lot of travelling.
2. £5,000 personal possessions with £3,000 single item world wide.
3. Home emergency cover.

missile

I phoned Direct Line to discuss a few concerns.

I found out that the travel insurance / personal possessions covers pretty much everything I need, except in the vent that the airline looses my bag. Does anyone know offhand what limit the airline will cover for lost bag?

Unlike most others, Direct Line do not have a limit on value of items like TV.