Home Insurance Discussion

kopper

Hi
I am currently living at my parents home who have retired abroad. The home insurance is up for renewable soon and I have used comparison sites to find a quote which is £100 less than their renewal quote with Aviva. I have a few questions:

- Is it worth having the sum assured on the buildings inurance as UNLIMITED?
or should it be closer to the rebuild value?

- Since my parents will be based abroad and the current policy and house is under their names, should I continue the policy in their names? If so, and i was to make a claim, would they need to be in the country?

Thanks

2Sheds

For the 2nd year running I've rung Tesco said almost £500 is too dear and another £150-170 saved in 10mins.

You know do this already I bet, still I'm happy saves me getting others quotes :j

chris1973

Ive posted this on its own thread, but its also highly relevant here.

Just a warning about Churchill Insurance price, when it comes to renewal time.

Very few insurers will quote a good renewal price compared to that offered to new customers, however Churchill extract the urine and crank that margin right up when it comes to the margin between keeping loyalty and a customer and enticing a new customer into the fold.

As an existing customer I am being quoted nearly £220 to renew with them for another year. I've never claimed from them, nor have any pending claims, my only 'crime' would be laziness by not shopping around and to just roll over and to pay this ludicrous price.

£106 is a lot to pay for the 10 mins it takes to type your details into a comparison website.

Using a well known comparison site, the quote which came back from Churchill when using exactly the same details as on my renewal (and previous policy) comes back at £114, that is a difference of over £100 just for the convenience of renewing an existing policy and for them to retain me as a customer. Sod that

I know that most insurers 'load' the policy when it comes to renewing, probably to try and claw back the outlay on cash back sites and all of that fancy advertising, but i've only experienced £30 or £40 differences, never as much as this £100 which is almost double the policy premium if I was a new customer.

So just a heads up if you are a Churchill Customer, chances are your renewal won't be as competitive as first taking a policy out with them and you'll probably find 20 or 30 insurance companies can easily beat their uncompetitive price.

It does anger me, that insurance companies are allowed to get away with two quotes, £104 apart for essentially the same policy, just based on whether you are a new or existing customer.

Usually the people who are unable to shop around and get better prices are possibly the elderly, the infirm or those on low incomes and without internet and by default are the ones least likely to be able to afford inflated prices, and who trust in their insurer year after year to play fair and give them a competitive price for their loyalty.

Seems Churchill, and others of their ilk like to abuse this trust and profit from it.

boobbby

I have in the past found the insurance premium was loaded after the first year. So most years I change companies and therefore got a quote from Shelias Wheels a couple of years ago. It was very cheap for home and conents insurance so I was expecting quite a hike this year. I was surprised to find it was only up by about 10% making the policy still very cheap compared to anybody else.

s1lv3rdal5

HOMESERVE left 84yo widow without heating/hot water during winter


Does anyone know of an insurance company that covers Home, Contents & Emergency Cover And DOESN'T USE HOMESERVE ?


Homeserve are used by a major insurance company for their Domestic Emergency Cover.

Last September my mother in law, a 84yo widow had a flood caused by her gas boiler, Homeserve stated there was no problem or the problem had been fixed (she is not sure).

This April she had another flood caused by the boiler, Homeserve refused to pay as the parts were serviceable items;
The parts that failed were;
A printed circuit board and a Thermostat

These items are not part of a regular boiler service, it is not part of Pottertons service schedule. It is like a car radio failing, now that is not a service item either.

The insurer is not asking her to pay the £100 excess, ( I think they suspect that the earlier fault was not fixed properly) .

She was forced to pay £340 out of her own pocket, as homeserve left her without Hot Water and Central Heating in April, which if you can remember was very cold with ice & snow !

Her home insurance is almost due for renewal and she does not want to have anything to do with homeserve.

Does anyone know of an insurance company that covers Home, Contents & Emergency Cover, and DOES NOT USE HOMESERVE ?

I have been speaking to the companies involved on her behalf, and I WILL be making a complaint to the FSA when this is all over and I get a "Final Response" from Homeserve.

I think their (Homeserve) actions are deplorable, and how anyone could treat an 84yo woman like this beggars belief.

I thought maybe this was a One Off, but reading this forum it is appears to be the norm for Homeserve.

DO NOT TOUCH HOMESERVE WITH A BARGEPOLE

THF

Hi,
I'm new, 5 months pregnant and at my wits end with Santander over my house insurance.
Briefly, as I have bored all my family and freinds with this story over the last 3 months my problem is as follows;
Took house insurance with Abbey National, and at the time of set up informed them of previous subsidence at the house. One year later thought I needed to claim and was told they were not aware of previous subsidence.
After 3 months of discussion, 12 hours of phone calls and 2 registered letters trying to resolve the problem and giving full details of all conversations regarding the previous subsidence they refuse to acknowledge my proof that I did inform them.
They sent a loss adjustor to check the house and there is no problem, hence no claim.
However, in addition to their repeated refusal to acknowldege my proof that I had informed this week they wrote to me telling me they had cancelled my policy with them as they are unable to find their own paperwork and therefore cannot be sure who is at fault.
I am now faced with finding a new insurance at short notice, and, far more worryingly, Santander refuse to acknowledge their error so I am worried that if I do have a claim in the future will have no come back on Santander.
I have emailed their CEO, and contacted the financial ombudsman but I am not convinced that either of these will bring me the guarantee I need.
Any suggestions?
:mad:

firebrigade50

WARNING IF YOU HAVE ONE OF THESE POLICIES.
AFTER DOING MY HOMEWORK I TOOK A COMBINED BUILDING AND CONTENTS POLICY WITH THE HALIFAX.AFTER READING THE MANY GET OUT CLAUSES I READ THAT IF THE HOUSE WAS HIT BY LIGHTNING THEY WOULD ONLY PAY OUT IF THERE WAS EVIDENCE OF FLAME DAMAGE.NOW AFTER BEING A FIREMAN FOR 31 YEARS I HAVE OVER THE YEARS BEEN TO MANY HOUSES THAT HAVE BEEN STUCK BY LIGHTNING. THE LIGHTNING HITS TV ARIEL TRAVELS INTO TV THEN THOUGH PLUG AND ROUND ALL ELECTRICS IT THEN DESTROYS BY HIGH TEMP MELTING ANY ELECTRICAL ITEM THAT IS PLUGGED IN. IN ALL A VERY SPECTACULAR SIGHT (AS LONG AS ITS NOT YOUR OWN HOUSE) THERE IS NOT ALLWAYS A FIRE MORE OF A HIG DAMAGE MELT OF ELECTRIC SYSTEM INCLUDING FUSE BOX.WHEN A CONFIRMED THIS WITH HALIFAX ON PHONE THEY SAID THEY WOULD NOT PAY OUT FOR SUCH DAMAGE AND I CANCELLED STAIGHT AWAY BACK TO DIRECT LINE WHO SAID I WOULD BE COVERED IN SUCH AN EVENT. BE WARNED:o

tallmum

Thank you to the posts in this thread - My house and contents was up for (automatic) renewal by Direct Line - I looked around the websites like Martin says and found some cheaper quotes. I then got a quote from Direct Line as a new customer (exact same details) - £42 less than the quote I had received for renewal - I phoned Direct Line who then came up with a price £2 less than the on-line quote. So £44 saving, for a policy doing everything I wanted, took less than 30minutes all-in!

:j:beer::T

MiaJane

Hi,
My boyfriend and I are both students at university and we're renting a small 2 bedroom flat together.
We previously lived in halls of residence and because we had individual rooms with lockable doors, we were covered seperately on our respective parents' home insurance. Now however, this does not cover us as we're living in a shared flat.
We're trying to get contents insurance as we have some valuable items such as laptops and cameras but nobody will insure us as we are students. We have tried student-specific insurance companies (Endsleigh) but they will not insure the flat as a whole or even let us have a joint account; they will only insure individuals and also require us to have individual, lockable rooms.
Does anyone have any ideas or advice?
Thanks, sorry for the long post!

dacouch

Are you sure your parent's insurance does not cover you in the new property, typically (Not always though) they do not specify that it has to be halls of residence. They typically ask whether you would normally return to your parents home out of term time. It could be worth rechecking with their insurers as a lot of call centre staff have limited knowledge of their own product.

Alternatively you could take out a normal joint contents policy, either speak to a local broker (Not Swintons), ring around a few direct insurers or chance your arm with comparision sites. Insuring this way can be expensive due to the lack of previous insurance, your ages and you being students.