Payment Shield Home Insurance - Stay or Go?

Ryutaro

Hi,

My home is presently insured through Payment Shield, which was arranged by my mortgage broker. It's due for renewal soon, and I'm considering changing insurer, as the monthly premium of £42 seems rather high.

My mortgage provider, Nationwide, say that they do a discount on home insurance for mortgage customers. What sort of reputation do Nationwide have for customer service, ease of claims, etc?

Also, my insurance comes with a number of extras, employment tribunal cover and cover against accident claims made against me (i.e., if someone injures themselves on my property). I wasn't aware of these extras when I bought the insurance, so I have no idea as to their value. Are these extra covers actually of any use?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice anyone can give me on this matter.

dunstonh

paymentshield household premiums have not been competitive for a while. They do have a good claims reputation though.

Also, my insurance comes with a number of extras, employment tribunal cover and cover against accident claims made against me (i.e., if someone injures themselves on my property). I wasn't aware of these extras when I bought the insurance, so I have no idea as to their value. Are these extra covers actually of any use?

Are they extras or included on the policy as default? Liability cover, for instance, is standard on virtually all household policies.

They are useful if you have a claim in that area.

dacouch

Payment Shield is not that great a home policy

Emmag1977

DaCouch is wrong, Paymentshield has a 4 star policy, I checked them out on defaqto and they are 4 star, (Churchill is 3 star), they also have a really good rep for actually doing what insurance should do and paying out .They cover u as well for lots of extras that you often dont buy online, home emergency cover is one I bought through them on my policy that my mortgage adviser gave me.
I also claimed wiht them a year ago and the service was second to none, I got my claim sorted in less than 2 weeks and they guarantee the repairs for 12 months
you cant buy it online though you can only get it through a financial adviser. RYutaro, my advice is stay where you are, you can always get i cheaper but cheap isnt always the best I can vouch for that.

dacouch

I'm not wrong, would you like me to go through the unusual exclusions in their policy?

For the record the Defaqto Star rating is easily manipulated now days as most companies have worked out which levels of cover they have to include to achieve certain star marks

The reason it is only available through Financial Advisers is because PS offer other products IFAs use, they pay very high amounts of commission, it's easy to sell the PS product and normal brokers would normally not offer the PS policy as it has some fairly unusual exclusions in it.

Their reputation for paying out is under their payment protection policies, their claims reputation for the home policies is average

dunstonh

I think the problem with Paymentshield is that they used to be a lot better than they are now. It was competitive and was very easy to set up (being electronic long before others were). However, whilst others improved, they stood still and ended up being surpassed.

I know my mortgage adviser hasnt used them for quite a few years now as the alternatives come in better in both quality and pricing. (in particular Source)

The reason it is only available through Financial Advisers is because PS offer other products IFAs use, they pay very high amounts of commission, it's easy to sell the PS product and normal brokers would normally not offer the PS policy as it has some fairly unusual exclusions in it.

I dont think its as simple as that. Some advisers dont do enough business in general insurance to have access to more providers. Some are also limited to using certain providers, of which paymentshield is a very common one. Whilst PS do seem to have a higher comm rate than the ones we use, the difference in premiums is nothing like the difference in comm.

Their reputation for paying out is under their payment protection policies, their claims reputation for the home policies is average

That sounds right. Last year I did a standalone unemployment cover plan and their product was the one that came out with the right balance between price and coverage.

Ali1982

In late 2008 I bought a home and covered my building and contents with Payment shield. About 4 months later we had a leak, quite a bad one. I called payment shield who told me we were no longer covered as it was a three month contract put in place for the sale of the home and the policy was no longer in place. So i then took out insurance with Lloyds and I shelled out for the repairs to our home. I did an account review of our spending this month and noticed that payment shield had been taking out payments since the begining of 2009 (when they told me it was no longer in place) until this month. Which is 15 months worth of payments. Whilst i appreciate we should have picked this up earlier I have had a horrible experiance with trying to get money back from them under the dual insurance policy that all insureres have to adhere to. Not once did payment shield call me, I think i have called them in total about 20 times over the last 3 weeks to try and get payment. In the mean time Lloyds have called me three times to ask what is taking payment shield so long. Lloyds seem to have been focused on me and my relationship and payment shield soom to not give a ****. I would never recomend them to anyone. When i spoke to them they seemed to be able to recall most of my conversations with them, but could not provide me with what action was being taken and how long it would take. Eventually I managed to speak to someone who said my refund has been signed off and the charges will be refunded WITHOUT THE ADMIN CHARGES??? I obviously objected and now i will have to probably go through another 3 weeks of chasing them. If your considering using them, DON'T!!

dunstonh

. If your considering using them, DON'T!!

If you apply that basis to anyone that has had a problem with a company then you would never use anyone. I have seen many many problems with Lloyds bank arranged insurances over the years. So, you better not use them either.

payless

I've had clients claim during and after the paymentshield free period ( now 2 months) and never come across this issue