Zurich Assurance & Paymentshield

irfan0611

Hi,
I bought a house last year (July 2012) from Edwardmellor on mortgage. I dont know much about the insurance requirements. I have two different insurances on my account one is Paymentshield Home & Contents Insurance and other is from Zurich. I dont have any documents for the Zurich insurance all I have is the direct debit details on my bank statements which listed as "Zurich Assurance". last week I received a call from Edwardmellor and they told me that my insurance is due to expire and call us for new quote. My question is what is Zurich Assurance and do I have to have it?

Regards
Irfan

vectistim

We can't tell from here, you'll have to look at your policy documents, or other information provided to you when you arranged the mortgage last year.

Since the Paymentshield one apparently says Home & Contents - that is presumably buildings insurance (ie: insurance for the building) and insurance of your contents. Your lender will insist that there is buildings insurance - this is generally an annual policy, and I would guess this is what they are looking to renew and re-quote for.

Zurich also do buildings and contents insurance (IME normally more competitively than Paymentshield, but that's just the postcodes I'm interested in). But the Zurich policy could be one of lots of other things too:
Car insurance? Life insurance? Critical illness? Income replacement?

ACG

Zurich do life insurance and critical illness insurance etc. You do not have to have it, but depending on your circumstances it can be advisable to have it - that being said... you should know what you have and what your paying for.

kingstreet

I suspect Mellors are a member of Openwork, the old Zurich Advice Network and they will have Paymentshield as a provider for general insurance and Zurich as a tie, or a panel member for life, critical illness and income protection cover.

amnblog

Edward Mellor are the agents using Explora, the FS arm of their group through Openwork (Openwork use Zurich extensively as most of what they do is through a limited panel).

If you are paying monthly for policies and you dont know what they are you should speak to Explora immediately.