Home contents and buildings insurance.

Str4tm4n

I have a combined contents and buildings policy with Zurich. It's all pretty much standard stuff apart from a guitar as a specified personal item.

I've been with Zurich a number of years and I've never really challenged their renewal quotes. Partly laziness, but also a belief that the quality of cover is at least as important as the level of premium, and I've been happy with their cover/ service.

But this year their quote seemed very expensive and seeing as I wanted to up the cover a little I decided to have a look on the comparison websites. What has surprised me is that even though the details I keyed into the comparison sites indicated a greater level of cover than I presently have, the resulting quotes were unbelieveably low compared to Zurich.

Zurich's quote - £897.96
The Green Insurance co. quote £197.98!!!

That seems bonkers. I rang Zurich to see if they might like to revise their quote. I upped the level of cover to match that offered by Green and to my astonishment (in the circs - ie what could they do to keep my business?), they offered me a new price £60 more than the original!

It's left me wondering just what sort of figure I should be paying. How can the low quotes on confused.com etc be offering the same quality of cover for so much less? I don't want insurance that's cheap because it's poor but on the other hand £1000 a year seems a ridiculous amount to pay.

I'm not suggesting cheap insurance is by definition, poor. But the difference in premiums makes me nervous.

Anyone got any thoughts?

lisyloo

How can the low quotes on confused.com etc be offering the same quality of cover for so much less?

Do go over it thoroughly.

Is accidental damage standard?
What is the single item limit?
What is the personal possession limit?
Food in the freezer? cash? bicycles? garden contents?
What's the definition of valuable? Is there a limit on those?

Some policies are overpriced, but some of the cheap ones also have very low limits or tight definitions on certain sections which you might find you need to raise significantly.

For example I've seen policies that state PC and TVs are "valuables" are you'd need to up the cover. Many cheap policies have low personal possessions limits e.g. a few thousand which wouldn't cover much after you include engagement/wedding rings. So do be careful about the cover.

ACG

Money supermarket typically doesnt offer the same level of cover.
There are cutbacks here and there and you will find the cover in comparison will be quite poor.

Thats not to £900 isnt expensive, but i would be very surprised if your comparing like for like.

Str4tm4n

Thanks for your comments. Just a quick look at the details of the cheapest policies confirm what you've said.

It's a bit misleading in that given the requirements I keyed in, the quotes include policies that don't offer what I asked to be covered. I wonder what percentage of users blythely click the buy key thinking they've got an absolute bargain?

I think I'll experiment by ringing one of the cheap quoters and see what happens to their premium when I ask for specific cover/values etc. I suspect they wont look quite so cheap.

Much as I like to save money as much as the next person, my experience is that there really isn't any free lunches out there and generally speaking you get what you pay for.