Recommendations for insurance company please

mikey72

I got a quote from M&S when I got one from Sainsburys. (I also got one direct from Axa, for comparison, when I realised M&S were selling the same insurance, but it was nearly twice the price!)

brownie4583

Not Esure!!!!You may as well be uninsured,they are 1 and the same thing!!!

sethipushpinder

Why not esure?

Sorry I have a policy with them which is coming up for renewal so just wondering!!

Did a comparison online and they are the cheapest ( not saying they are best as never had a claim on home insurance so far)

dunstonh

sethipushpinder wrote: »

Why not esure?

Sorry I have a policy with them which is coming up for renewal so just wondering!!

Did a comparison online and they are the cheapest ( not saying they are best as never had a claim on home insurance so far)

Very poor reputation on claims. Will push as hard as possible to reject or reduce the claim. The OP says they want quality. Not cheap tosh.

alanq

As the OP says lots of information on price but almost nothing on service. Even Which?'s "best" companies seem to be largely based on how easy it is to get a quote and what is covered rather than how well insurers deal with claims.

Two providers highly rated by Which? are John Lewis and Marks & Spencer but these policies are underwritten by AXA which has one of the lowest scores.

Similarly Nationwide policies underwritten by Churchill score much more highly than Churchill itself.

HSBC policies (in top half of table) are underwritten by Aviva (near the bottom).

etc. etc.

This all leaves me totally confused.

dunstonh

This all leaves me totally confused.

As does a lot of Which? research to be honest.

InsideInsurance

alanq wrote: »

Similarly Nationwide policies underwritten by Churchill score much more highly than Churchill itself.

Just because two brands are underwritten by the same company it doesnt mean you will get the same service.

For example, or at least it was the case a few years ago, Nationwide is u/w by Churchill it actually manages the policies themselves and I believe handles the small claims themselves too (though not positive on that bit).

Even if it is administered by the same people it still doesnt mean you get the same service. A previous client was an intermediary used to sell a policy underwritten by Axa but used to white label the product to its own partners.

If you looked at something simple like, how quickly you want the phone answered for your customers, the end brand could simply pay more for their customers calls to be prioritised in answering. Likewise they could pay to avoid having admin fees charged, increased goodwill when looking at borderline claims etc.

So the same Axa product from a single intermediary sold under 30 or so brands could come out as an ultra budget product or a top level service simply depending on how much that end brand wanted to pay at wholesale levels - it is obviously up to them if they want to reflect the higher quality/ cost in the price that they ultimately charge their customers.