Budget home insurance?

henrygregory

Hi, I am getting in some quotations for home insurance and Budget has cropped up.
They have a couple of extras which are quite appealing:

• Legal Protection
• Key care

Pretty self explanatory.
Can anyone tell me if I were to use the legal protection for say legal help with an issue ie: bought something and retailer wont refund, would this affect the NCB? Would this go down on claims history?


Similarly, say I lost my car key and put in a claim for the key care component of the policy, does this get listed as a claim?



These extra components obviously add up and it may be better for me to just set some cash aside in case I do ever loose a key etc as opposed to adding them onto the policy.


Any suggestions/opinions would be greatly appreciated :money:

l0u1se

Generally Legal Help, Key Care, Home Emergency etc are treated separately on home insurance to the usual standard buildings contents etc so won't affect your NCD..however this may not be the same for all companies.

henrygregory

Hi, thanks for your posts. Just a quick update for you/anyone else in the same boat.

I gave budget a call and spoke to an incredibly helpful lady. I spent over 30 minutes going through all of the options with her.

The two extras: Legal Care, and KeyCare are separate to the policy and do not count against your claims history. You do not need to declare these claims in future with an insurer.

Legal Protection does come with a £100.00 fee per claim.

I have just signed up to a years insurance. Superb customer care, based on my call just now, I can highly recommend, very pleased!

*Scarlett

Many legal policies have no fee or excess to pay for claims so the one that you have may not be the best. There may be a waiting period for certain types of claims if you have not had legal cover on the previous policy.

Neither key or legal cover claims will affect your ncd as they are separate policies.

Make sure you read all the "small print" to ensure that it is useful to you.

Quentin

henrygregory wrote: »

.....Superb customer care, based on my call just now, I can highly recommend, very pleased!

You maybe made a mistake judging their customer care based on speaking to a lady in their sales department.

You haven't done any proper research into budget (actually bisl)

Have a read here before your cooling off period expires:

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews66990.html

There is more independent opinion from Which?

http://www.which.co.uk/money/insurance/reviews-ns/home-insurance/which-recommended-providers/

In their listing, budget come bottom, and (needless to say) don't get a recommendation!

henrygregory

Quentin wrote: »

You maybe made a mistake judging their customer care based on speaking to a lady in their sales department.

You haven't done any proper research into budget (actually bisl)

Have a read here before your cooling off period expires:

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews66990.html

There is more independent opinion from Which?

http://www.which.co.uk/money/insurance/reviews-ns/home-insurance/which-recommended-providers/

In their listing, budget come bottom, and (needless to say) don't get a recommendation!

Hmm, it is a tricky one. Of the reviews you gave a link to, the majority of them refer to automatic renewals at over inflated prices, and problems with monthly payments and charges.

Automatic renewals can be stopped very easily, with one recorded letter asking for auto renewal to be turned off.

I always pay up front for my insurance, and don't plan to change address in the next year.

There don't appear to be any bad reviews about customers who have had to claim.
It said on the site that all of their staff are English speaking.

A tricky one. If I cancel during the cooling off period I will have to pay to do so. They are only a broker, the policy is underwritten by a good company, so provided I don't need to alter my cover, I wouldn't expect to experience any problems.

henrygregory

A quick update. I called in this morning to get the auto renew disabled. Spoke to a very helpful gentleman who confirmed it was taken off and explained how and what he had done. He was very helpful again.

I am all for giving people/companies a chance. You did mention they were low down on the table. Maybe they are trying to better themselves, and if that is the case, I am happy to give them a go. Let's hope I don't end up with egg on my face, don't disappoint Budget! lol