The Beaver Company

Monkey_Shaving_Expert

In September 2005, The Beaver Company took over the contracts of the small local firm I had my heating system covered by (Maywood Heating). Maywood were great; any problems, give them a call and they would send a friendly little chap out to have a lok. On occasion, it was the firm's owner himself. One day, our heating system leaked in the middle of the night and they sent a guy out to secure it that night, then he came back in the morning with the right bits to fix it. Great service.

Beaver, on the other hand, have been useless. Their office is open between 8am and 4:30pm and they don't have an out-of-hours number (so if something goes wrong in the middle of the night, we're shafted until the next morning). We've recently had heating cylinder issues and it has been a constant struggle to get them to come and look at it. Then they tried to tell us that we needed a new boiler for £2000.

More recently, we were promised that their cylinder specialist would come and look at it. That was about five weeks ago.

For this, we're paying £15.50 a month.

MY options, as I see it, are thus:-

1) Stay put. Pay for no peace-of-mind and hope nothing goes wrong after 4:30pm.

2) Move to British Gas Home 200, which seems to have roughly the same cover, but with a 24 hour callout number and costs 50p a month less.

3) Cancel altogether and save my £15.50 a month in a jar marked "plumbing emergencies" just in case.

4) Another option I haven't thought of that you, the Money-Savers, can suggest.

I throw myself open to the collected wisdom of this forum.

alanobrien

It depends on your circumstances.

I would go for option 3 providing you have a plentiful supply of good local trades people.

If not then option 2 may be a better choice given that you would at least get someone to attend the emergency.

Don't forget to check out the other supply options for option 2 though Domestic & General, Norwich union, Powergen etc all do their own version.

Cardew

BG will inspect your system before they will offer cover, and they have to comply with the latest strict instructions. If you have an oldish system you are looking at a lot of expenditure.

Ken68

Hi Mky S.E., ,,,I've just taken out Home Emergency Insurance with Swinton, half price special offer. Normally £59 per annum...24hr helpline 0800 number.
I quote...Advise how to protect you and the property immediately. Instruct a suitable local trademan to attend, organize to pay up to £750 for call out, labour, parts and materials to carry out an emergency repair OR if at a similiar expense a permanent repair. 3 months and 12 months warranty.