Home Insurance Discussion

mikeyboy

Hello,

I am looking to obtain the best deal on my B+C insurance, have been with CIS for the last year and their renewal notice has come today and a whopping £114 more expensive than last year despite no claims being made, which is a bit cheeky really!

Anyway, I have looked at various comparison sites and they tend to ask for 'rebuilding costs' I know that quite a few insurers now offer unlimited cover for buildings, or upto say £1million, but for the sake of comparison I need to put in a value.

I know there is the ABI calculator, are there any others?

I live in a small 3 bed semi in Manchester, I guess the market value at the moment is around the £150,000 mark, so presume rebuild cost would be quite a lot less?

Any advice?

Thanks

mikeyboy

bump..... does anyone have any experiance of this?

payless

Queen might be best to delete that now ( or at least knock off last 2 digits)-
I'll report back asap

payless

I've looked at some firms that don't ask the question- but they are declining that postcode. ( although in these cases I generally recommend disclosing fully - even if not asked,- and getting underwriters to confirm acceptance )

have found some companies that will quote ( at very reasonable rates) but then ask the question about flooding, so ( on obviouisly answering correctly) this would refer to a manual check.

The companies I have checked so far ( AND WOULD RECOMMEND A MORE IN DEPTH SEARCH) offer business only via brokers, in a white label format - albeit the policies are underwritten by some major players ( ie branded by the distributor) - but sometimes these "white label" policies get a get degree of flexibility with underwriters

Get a decent broker to work for you- either one with a lot of experience in this matter and can discuss direct with underwriters OR strangely maybe better get one with access to " white label" plans rather than one that deals direct.

dacouch

I agree with payless, you may as well remove your post code as it is of no help to the advice we can give you.

Most Insurers rely on the information from the environment agency as to whether a home is a flood risk, you can check whether your home is at flood risk on their website here http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/31656.aspx (Enter your post code where it says "Flood Map"

In addition to the environmental agency data Insurers also ask questions as to how far your home is from a river or water course and they also ask whether your home has ever flooded. If it has ever flooded then the vast majority of Insurers will decline cover. Some may consider offering cover if flood defences have been built since the flooding.

If flood defences have been built since the flood then you normally need to obtain a personalised report from the environmental agency which confirms what flood defences have been built, whether they feel the home will flood again and / or what they expect the chances of flooding again are (This is normally expressed as how many times they expect it to flood in say 100 years, 50 years etc).

You could try Norwich Union / Aviva who have additional data on flooding as they paid for a plane with a sophisticated radar to produce a map of the UK which can tell them which homes will flood. They use your post code and house number to do this but posting it on MSE is pointless as you may as well ring NU / Aviva yourself.

There are other some brokers who have specific schemes for homes that have flooded, however these are often with obscure Lloyd's Syndicates and the cover is not always very good. In addition I would normally advise against transferring your cover to a new Insurer as Nat West paid out on your claim they will normally continue offering cover (As you have found they do sometimes increase the premium and / or excess). If you transfer to a new company and then they decide to stop offering cover in the future (There can be many reasons for this such as they decide to target a different part of the market as they are getting to many claims etc etc) then it could be a case of you finding it very very difficult and possible impossible to find cover at all. If you went down this route and then could not find cover or it was at a ridiculous cost then you could find the value of your home is dramatically affected as any future buyers would be put off if the Insurance cannot be bought for the home.

My advice for you would be to speak to Nat West and ask them to review the premium to see if they can make any reduction, if they cannot it might be worth asking them to give you a quote with an increased excess.

QueenBee

THANKYOU payless and dacouch for taking the time to reply - I feel a little more confident in being able to negogiate now!

prjames

Just had my renewal today. We've been a "loyal" Direct Line customer for some years but I decided to have a look around anyway.
Having found several cheaper quotes for either the same or better cover I phoned Direct Line to see whether they could match the others.
Funny enough they did.

Now, why as a customer of several years with a good claims record could they not have offered me their "best price" to start with?
They could have at least been close to the other quotes but between £100 to £200 different thats taking something away from Armitage Shanks.

As it stands I'll be writing to them to explain why they have just lost a customer. The loyalty only goes one way it seems.

Oh, and I'll be checking the renewal on this new policy, which incidently saved me over £100 over the year for more cover, as well so no more Mr Loyal nice guy either.

maysoo

The MSE Home Insurance article adivses to first go through a search site like Confued / Compare the Market etc to get an idea of the best deal then to go to that insurer (after clearing cookies on the PC) via a cashback site in the hope of getting money back. however i note that by going through the search site first like Confused your details and the property/quote details are automaticaly loaded by the search site onto the insurers sites for future quote ease. Thus when you subsequently go via the cashback site to the selected insurer and enter your details (& the property) the insurer would realise that the lead was not generated first from the Cashback site but from the likes of Confused etc. Does this mean the cashback will not be payable as the business was first marketed by the search site and not the Cashback site? any views?

kelly78

As I am a leasholder i have been switched to Swinton Insurance any thoughts on this company,

Quentin

Brokers, not insurers.

Not the best!

Some reviews here:

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews-all-11389.html