Central Heating Insurance

beany

Hi
I hope I have put this in the right place,
I want to insure my cental heating against break down.
It's still under warranty but when I read terms and conditions they only come out Mon to Friday 9am to 5pm.
So if it breaks down Sat morning I could be without heating/hot water for 3days or more
Can anyone suggest where I can get 24/7 cover.
I think British Gas charge about £16 per month, seems expensive
Thanks

PS love the site

dougk_2

Don't bother is my opinion! Just find a reliable local plumber who you know you can call when you need help! Who installed the system? Maybe stick with them. There was a large thread on this a month or so ago....

gromituk

Like all insurance, it's there to give you peace of mind and to make the insurance companies a profit. Unless it is a legal requirement (such as motor insurance), or you could not cope with the worst that could happen if you weren't insured (such as buildings insurance) then you should consider whether it's really worth it. After all, if your heating breaks down, can you really not survive a day or two with a fan heater and a kettle, and if you need a new boiler can't you get a loan to pay for it? If you have a conventional system, you won't even need the kettle as you can use your immersion heater.

Insurance companies will also try to minimise their risk by putting strict conditions on what they cover, and possibly making you pay for all sorts of unnecessary work before they will agree to cover you.

clive_the_gas

Sounds like BG might actually be a good choice for you.

You say you just want peace of mind

They give 24/7 cover
Parts & labour covered
Big workforce of direct labour engineers

God it's sound like i'm on the payroll !!

Dougk, a local plumber is ok but he's still gonna have to charge for both labour & parts in the event of a breakdown.

Gromituk, not everybody's got money in the bank or can afford to take out a loan if and when repairs are needed, in which case a measured monthly payment might perhaps be more appropriate

dougk_2

clive_the_gas wrote:

Dougk, a local plumber is ok but he's still gonna have to charge for both labour & parts in the event of a breakdown.

But you only pay if something goes wrong!

I never had any problems for 6 years and so saved £1200, When something did go wrong it only cost £65 to have it fixed. Servicing I got from a local semi-retired corgi registered engineer for £35 a year.

Its a gamble, but one that pays off often (hence how the insuarnce company makes its money!).

Put the money aside you would pay the insurance with and if you don't need it then you have a nice holiday paid for. Especially if you add in all the other insurance you are likely to take out for domestic appliances etc.... If everything goes wrong you are either very unlucky or very accident prone!

Anything major (i.e. need new boiler) and the insurance normally won't cover it anyway.

anskills

dougk wrote:

But you only pay if something goes wrong!

I never had any problems for 6 years and so saved £1200, When something did go wrong it only cost £65 to have it fixed. Servicing I got from a local semi-retired corgi registered engineer for £35 a year.

Its a gamble, but one that pays off often (hence how the insuarnce company makes its money!).

Put the money aside you would pay the insurance with and if you don't need it then you have a nice holiday paid for. Especially if you add in all the other insurance you are likely to take out for domestic appliances etc.... If everything goes wrong you are either very unlucky or very accident prone!

Anything major (i.e. need new boiler) and the insurance normally won't cover it anyway.

today i very very much agree with you!!! lol

to me, the insurance is too expensive and if the worst comes to the worst i will buy a couple of fan convectors for £10 each and use the immersion for a few days.

boilers should work reasonably hassle free for many years as long as serviced annually by a corgi engineer. the money that you save would pay for anything that went wrong, say 5 years down the line.

there are not all that many things to go wrong with a boiler really, normally thermocouple, burnt out pcb or leaking gas valve are the main ones, or a sticking 3 port valve giving no hot water. if the boiler breaks down totally and is unfixable the insurance will not cover it anyway and British Gas will charge double what a local plumber would charge to install a new one

save the money, if it makes you feel better put £10 a month into a jar or savings account and keep it until needed.

Purdy_1

When we brought our house we chose to go with British Gas for their cover. We are covered for everything in the house except pipes that leave the house to the road outside (must remember to get those covered too :rolleyes: ) 3 months after taking out their coverplan my niece decided to yank on the radiator in the hall. 1 hour after my brother left I had a nice puddle forming on the floor. We had it fixed within 24 hours and this was between xmas and new yr. Another time we noticed the pipe from the loo that goes into the floor was leaking. A call to British Gas and problem sorted. They sent Dynarod (lovely flourescent pink vans)out and they replaced the seal. Its peace of mind to know that if anything goes wrong Im covered for £16, and whats £16 ? A takeaway ? McDonalds for the family ? A small price to pay if you ask me.

anskills

Purdy_1 wrote:

Its peace of mind to know that if anything goes wrong Im covered for £16, and whats £16 ? A takeaway ? McDonalds for the family ? A small price to pay if you ask me.

its almost £2000 over 10 years! assuming that the installtion has been done in the last 15 - 20 years and boiler being a decent brand like ideal, i would expect very few problems but if there was they more than likely wouldnt run into anywhere near that amount. you can have a whole brand new boiler, depending on kw rating and type, bought and installed for about £1k and full central heating install for under £2k.

i guess its a gamble, just like contents insurance. i for one would rather pay contents insurance though as knowing that i could lose my £15k worth of contents and have nothing is a scary thought. having no heating for a couple of days or at worst having a £1k bill barely raises a goosepimple on my arm lol.

anyway my buildings and contents insurance combined with accidental cover is only £10 a month with key connect! heating insurance is £16 a month!!! where is the logic there??!!

catherineblack

Hi! Our central heating system was installed 2 and half years ago. Twice a part has broken and needed replacing. (Resulting in leaking all over our kitchen) The first time we were covered as it was a new system - but the second time we had no cover. I spent two days trying to find a reputable plumber - most of whom wouldn't come out for a small job. In the end it cost £170 to fix it through the manufacturer. So now we have got heating cover just in case this same problems occurs. I believe it is worth it - now we have a brand new kichen fitted I could not leave the problem two or three days to leak and cause damage. At least with cover you get help asap. I searched around. Norwich Union direct do very good cover. But the best I could find was with Powergen. We pay £13 a month - and the first three months were free. We are Powergen customers for gas and electric but we are not tied them. I don't think you have to be a Powergen enegry customer to get heating cover. I feel it is just as good cover as British Gas and cheaper.
good luck!!
catherine

RedOnRed

In my opinion, it's money very well spent the cover that British Gas provide. I've almost always used them and they've responded very quickly and fixed things very nicely. I've even told them that i've had a few intermittent faults on things and they've replaced those without quibbling...so I ended up with a very nice new room stat and digital programmer.

You can always find the cover slightly cheaper else where - but read between the lines. You may find that there's maximum claim amounts, etc.

The one year that I didn't use BG I had all sorts of disgruntled, apathetic, sub contracting plumbers coming round. The sort that you didn't really want in your house. My parents used NPower's cover for one year and their central heating was out of action for about 2 weeks over a christmas and one of the coldest spells we've ever had. I had to ring them up (NPower) myself and get threatening to resolve it.

A couple of hundred pounds a year for 24/7 central heating peace of mind seems money very well spent in the scale of things. Without it, when your system's broken down and you can't get a plumber for a month and are charged twice that just to fit one part...you'll know what I mean.

Purdy_1

anskills wrote:

its almost £2000 over 10 years! assuming that the installtion has been done in the last 15 - 20 years and boiler being a decent brand like ideal, i would expect very few problems but if there was they more than likely wouldnt run into anywhere near that amount. you can have a whole brand new boiler, depending on kw rating and type, bought and installed for about £1k and full central heating install for under £2k.

i guess its a gamble, just like contents insurance. i for one would rather pay contents insurance though as knowing that i could lose my £15k worth of contents and have nothing is a scary thought. having no heating for a couple of days or at worst having a £1k bill barely raises a goosepimple on my arm lol.

anyway my buildings and contents insurance combined with accidental cover is only £10 a month with key connect! heating insurance is £16 a month!!! where is the logic there??!!

My C/H boiler is less than 6 yrs old and is a good one. I still believe that £16 is a small price to pay for peace of mind.