Boiler insurance.

Rev

Just wondering if anyone had any positive experiences with boiler insurance. Any companies people would recommend?

Had a new boiler fitted a year back ad British gas have called me about 10 times this week to take out boiler cover now its not in the 12 month warranty period.

uSwitch has homeserve as cheapest, but a quick search of this forum reveals horror stories galore for home serve. Also a lot of stories of British gas having an engineer say during an anual check that it needs a power flush, then not paying out on the next call out unless you pay £800 for the power flush. Because apparently they dont cover anything after they say you need a power flush.

So am wondering of there are any companies that are worth taking the insurance with? I worry because if it breaks down I'm in no position to pay hundreds to get it fixed.

Will call my home insurance Monday and check if I can add/already have cover with them.

Thanks,

ariba10

I would find out the monthly cost of B G cover and then put that aside each month.

If you have problems with the system get a local qualified recommended man.

(But that is just my recommendation)

ariba10

The problem with large companies is that some of them pay a bonus to the people that get them extra (sometimes unneeded work)

Rev

Yeah that's my worry. They want extras because they get commission for them.

British Gas cover is £14 a month for the first year. Even if I put that away if not have enough for a repair should it go caput. According to the MSE article the average repair is around £300.


Had to laugh at the caller from BG wanted to charge me £22 for home cover 200. I pointed out its only £14 on their web site. He then said well we can offer a discount which brings it down to.....surprisingly.....£14. Wonder how many poor people have fallen for that and are paying almost £10 more a month. Right away that's put me off BG home care. Since they are obviously not averse to lying and ripping people off.

daveyjp

Why is your warranty up after just one year? 5-15 years is now the norm on new boilers.

As for cover check your home insurance provider, it may be included, it may be available for pennies a month.

Rev

daveyjp wrote: »

Why is your warranty up after just one year? 5-15 years is now the norm on new boilers.

As for cover check your home insurance provider, it may be included, it may be available for pennies a month.

The boiler was fitted via British Gas's boiler replacement scheme. So I assume the warranty is only 12 months so they can then make some cash back via homecare. Will call vaillant on Monday and check warranty length.

I have home emergency cover. But I hate claiming on the house insurance Unless I absolutely have to because the premiums then Sky rocket.

bridgedino

Rev wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone had any positive experiences with boiler insurance. Any companies people would recommend?

Had a new boiler fitted a year back ad British gas have called me about 10 times this week to take out boiler cover now its not in the 12 month warranty period.

uSwitch has homeserve as cheapest, but a quick search of this forum reveals horror stories galore for home serve. Also a lot of stories of British gas having an engineer say during an anual check that it needs a power flush, then not paying out on the next call out unless you pay £800 for the power flush. Because apparently they dont cover anything after they say you need a power flush.



So am wondering of there are any companies that are worth taking the insurance with? I worry because if it breaks down I'm in no position to pay hundreds to get it fixed.

Will call my home insurance Monday and check if I can add/already have cover with them.

Thanks,

British Gas, like many other companies, will not take a boiler / system on under contract unless it is in a good, clean working order. That will include the system water which if dirty or contaminated will in time further corrode and eventually cause no end of issues. If the service engineer advises the customer that the system is choked and requires a clean then of course they will not provide their cover if the advice is ignored and further work is asked for due to the choked system.

As a customer you're welcome to either act on the advice or ignore it and find another source of boiler cover care. Its easy to complain when you don't like the advice that's being offered.

In our house BG give us an annual service on our boiler and recently attended within the same day to replace a faulty PCB which would otherwise have cost us over £180

I can't fault them so far in the 9 yrs I've been using them

Rev

bridgedino wrote: »

British Gas, like many other companies, will not take a boiler / system on under contract unless it is in a good, clean working order. That will include the system water which if dirty or contaminated will in time further corrode and eventually cause no end of issues. If the service engineer advises the customer that the system is choked and requires a clean then of course they will not provide their cover if the advice is ignored and further work is asked for due to the choked system.

As a customer you're welcome to either act on the advice or ignore it and find another source of boiler cover care. Its easy to complain when you don't like the advice that's being offered.

In our house BG give us an annual service on our boiler and recently attended within the same day to replace a faulty PCB which would otherwise have cost us over £180

I can't fault them so far in the 9 yrs I've been using them

Thanks. I appreciate the opinion.


I realise they won't cover a boiler they assume has issued but I was referring to the fact a lot of people have said they have been told these issues are there when they are in fact not. Just to get the customer to pay £800 or so for the power flush that isn't needed. They are at the end of the day a business and the engineers work on commission. So my issue is if they say a power flush is needed. Is it because it's actually needed, or because they get commission for it? Then save BG more cash because they have a reason not to complete any more needed repairs because a power flush is 'needed'.


This was why I was asking what people's experience of them is. I have just spotted the big boiler cover thread which I now realise I should have posted this in.


But it's good to hear positive experiences of them.


My mum had boiler cover and I really wish I could remember whom it was with as she had no end of trouble with her boiler at one point and they always came out same day and sorted the issue.

Rev

Elasticmoney wrote: »

Been with BG Homecare for as long as I can remember and have always found the service to be faultless.Had to call them out a couple of weeks ago as the recently installed boiler was firing continuously and the heating would not switch off.Called them up and we had an engineer out within 2 hours.It turned out the froststat was set too high and was resolved within 10minutes.
We had an awful lot of problems with our old Glowworm boiler and 90% of the times we called them they visited the same day - on one occasion we called at 4pm and the engineer arrived within 40minutes despite us being told it would be the next morning.
On the single occasion that the engineer could not fix the fault due to having to order parts he left us with a couple of fan heaters to keep us warm until his return the following day.
Have never been subjected to any hard sell such as power flushes etc.Even when our old boiler was quite clearly dying they never tried to push us into upgrading and continued to repair it.In the end it was our decision to replace and once again the service was very good.

Thanks!


Good to hear some positive experiences.


Will call my home insurance and check what the cover is there and call vaillant and ask about warrantys.


Homecare 200 does have the cover I want and £14.50 a month isn't extortionate. So will think on it and decide in the week.

southcoastrgi

whats the boiler make & model ?

Rev

southcoastrgi wrote: »

whats the boiler make & model ?

It's a vaillant Eco tech pro 24. Fitted exactly a year ago today.