House insurance - where...to...start?

Nine_Lives

I honestly do not have a clue. I can google "what do i do regarding house insurance", but i'd rather have some give-&-go responses, which is why i'm here.

Basically in the past, my dad always dealt with it & that was the end of it.
Since he died last year, everything is on my mother now & some things she's having to deal with for the first time. As the house income has gone down, the cost is having to be spread much more, so now that i'm involved, i want to know how to make things as good, but also as cheap, as possible. The key thing is i don't want to & don't want the others to spend money that we don't have to.
To turn it into a positive, i guess this is also good 'training' for when my gf & I move out & get our own place next year.


We have an auto-renewal through from Swinton. I guess this is going to be similar to car insurance, in that your auto-renewal is often more expensive than you can get if you shop around.

Question is where to start? What to factor in? I know nothing about this field whatsoever, so i don't even know the questions that i should be asking.

dacouch

How about getting your mum to pop to a good local broker (Not Swintons), they should be able to take down her details and requirements. Then explain to her in lay mans terms what the different covers are so she understands what she's buying.

They might not be the very cheapest, but finding her cover she understands, covers what she wants and in her price bracket. Will enable her to do her own shopping around next renewal now that she understands home insurance

Nine_Lives

Very fair point.

At the risk of sounding very stupid, what does this come under in the yellow pages? Is it as simple as "house insurance" or is it a bit more obscure? To be perfectly honest, we wouldn't know one in town, so would have to look one up. Apologies for sounding dim there.


How good are online comparisons & the like? Are they a bit too "blanket" for this type of insurance or are they ok?

dacouch

K_P83 wrote: »

Very fair point.

At the risk of sounding very stupid, what does this come under in the yellow pages? Is it as simple as "house insurance" or is it a bit more obscure? To be perfectly honest, we wouldn't know one in town, so would have to look one up. Apologies for sounding dim there.


How good are online comparisons & the like? Are they a bit too "blanket" for this type of insurance or are they ok?

Probably under "Insurance Agents or Brokers", or ask some of her friends for recommendations of brokers or use this via the "Find insurance" http://www.biba.org.uk/

The reason I've recommended the above, is that with all due respect you probably don't understand house insurance. So you trying to find out what your mum wants etc and then finding it could be problematic.

If you do decide to go it alone pay particular attention to her jewellery eg total of it all at current replacement value* and any singular items that are over say £1000.

Older people often want basic cover (Normally called "Standard Cover") as they claim less often. It may be worth considering Accidental Damage Cover on the buildings as older people sometimes miss maintenance on their homes and this can help pick up some of the resultant claims.

If she needs cover for items such as jewellery away from the home work out the values.

Work out how much discount she gets for different excesses and then work out the best value for her. A good way to work out the best value would be to find out a premium for say a £50 excess. Then get quotes on higher excesses, multiply the annual saving by say 7 (As an assumption she claims once every seven years) and then work out after deducting the excess from the saving whether the saving is worth the increased excess.

* Please remember that gold and platinum prices have rocketed in recent years which has a big effect on jewellery prices

InsideInsurance

I would say 95% of people have no idea about what they are buying so dont worry you arent alone.

If you want a discussion with a local broker then look up "Insurance Broker". When you call them just ask if they do home insurance.

Home insurance is certainly more complex than Motor but you can certainly still use comparison sites. Just be slightly aware that if Company A quotes £100 and Company B quoting £200 and whilst both have all the boxes ticked in the simple chart they could still be very different policies and the only way you can tell is by reading. As always check that everything has transferred across properly before buying!

GlynD

Try Direct Line http://www.directline.com/home/welcome.htm

I got my premium reduced by 50% and lost no benefits. I'm on 0% excess as well.

elantan

they wont touch me glyn ... or should i say i have to phone them on a premium number to get a quote ... i think not

Nine_Lives

Thanks very much for the replies. Very helpful.

From memory, we've only claimed once in about 20 years or so.

What do you factor in? You mention jewellery. It could get very painful if you factor everything in. For example ...... on my desk in front of me is 2 candles, a clock, a fake jellyfish aquarium thingy. I doubt these would be things you put in, because it sounds silly/OTT to me.

There would be obvious things though - TVs, PCs, Sky boxes, beds, wardrobes, clothes, fridges, freezers etc.

But what about the in-betweens?

Also, i'm guessing that one question would be how much is the house worth. We got asked this question by the solicitor when going through probate. They were happy with a guess, but the fact is we don't know. We could be out +/- by £40,000 for all we know. I do know that the house certainly wont be hitting its potential due to very dated decor & damp issues for a start, but even still, our guess could be wildly out.

I'm sure there was something else i was to ask, but i forget.

with all due respect you probably don't understand house insurance.

Nail + head. I'm sorry, but you get no prizes today, because that's pretty obvious

xylophone

Check your existing policy/policies to see what is covered.
http://www.swinton.co.uk/home-insurance/home-insurance-buyers-guide
http://www.primelocation.com/guides/insurance/guide-to-choosing-home-insurance/
http://www.home.co.uk/guides/buying/insurance.htm
http://calculator.bcis.co.uk/

Linton

K_P83 wrote: »

What do you factor in? You mention jewellery. It could get very painful if you factor everything in. For example ...... on my desk in front of me is 2 candles, a clock, a fake jellyfish aquarium thingy. I doubt these would be things you put in, because it sounds silly/OTT to me.

There would be obvious things though - TVs, PCs, Sky boxes, beds, wardrobes, clothes, fridges, freezers etc.

But what about the in-betweens?

Also, i'm guessing that one question would be how much is the house worth. We got asked this question by the solicitor when going through probate. They were happy with a guess, but the fact is we don't know. We could be out +/- by £40,000 for all we know. I do know that the house certainly wont be hitting its potential due to very dated decor & damp issues for a start, but even still, our guess could be wildly out.

I'm sure there was something else i was to ask, but i forget.
Nail + head. I'm sorry, but you get no prizes today, because that's pretty obvious

When insuring house contents you only need to explicitly list things of more than a certain value, say £2k. Eveything else is just bundled into a total amount insured.

Aproximate cost of house is fine. They will base the insurance cost on the basics - no of bedrooms etc. So the house value only becomes an issue if its actual value is somethng very different.

Nine_Lives

Just goes to show that i don't know what i'm doing.

did an online quote out of interest. Some of the questions i didn't have a clue, so i just guessed.

Final answer was not a single one of the 91 companies could give a quote based on what i said.


Though what i found interesting was i think our house is worth around 180k, but i'm totally guessing. Apparently, they reckon it'll cost 340k to rebuild.
I'm no expert, but from watching homes under the hammer, i'd say that's way way too much. As i just said though - i'm no expert.