House Insurance - Renewal with additional charges

MichaelUK_2

I currently have a landlord home insurance policy with Discount Insurance. They have sent me a renewal and I'm slightly concerned with some of the additional charges and changes they may/may not have made to my policy.

My Sum insured has been increased from £200,000 at £210,000, they say it has been index linked with industry standards and seem to have charged me a £15 admin fee for doing this. Is this usual or is the £15 fee for sending out my renewal quote?

They have added an optional Legal Expenses cover to my policy as they deem this cover extremely important, this has added £35 to my quote. A brief summarisation is given about why this cover is important but I'm not sure what to make of it.

I'm also concerned about the levels of cover and excesses being changed, I think to be safe I will have to compare the original policy with the renewal and locate all the differences.

What are your opinions on this renewal? Are they trying it on or are these amendments and charges justified.

Thanks in advance.

FreddieFrugal

Have you spoken to them over the phone about this? Basically they're hoping to profit from people not bothering to check their renewal, luckily you did.

I understand from what you've said that these things have just been added on without actually bothering to ask you if you wanted them or not.

You have every right to tell them to remove those things and sort out any discrepancies you find - like changed excess levels.

If you're still not happy with the quote then do an insurer search and find a better deal.

MichaelUK_2

IanRi wrote: »

Have you spoken to them over the phone about this? Basically they're hoping to profit from people not bothering to check their renewal, luckily you did.

I understand from what you've said that these things have just been added on without actually bothering to ask you if you wanted them or not.

You have every right to tell them to remove those things and sort out any discrepancies you find - like changed excess levels.

If you're still not happy with the quote then do an insurer search and find a better deal.

I will be speaking to them tonight, I've not asked them to add or change anything.

The reason I posted here was to find out if the things included within this renewal are out of the ordinary and if I should allow them to raise my sum insured or not.

Thanks for the reply

rudekid48

The index linking of the sum insured is standard practice for buildings cover to reflect increase in rebuild costs year on year due to inflation etc.

An admin fee on a renewal is also pretty standard.

As for the legal expenses - that is an 'optional' extra and so you are under no obligation to take it...