Are there companies/people who can lump all your policies together?

sdrio

Doing my sporadic review of finances recently, it occured to me that I have an awful lot of insurance policies.

I have home, life x 2, mortgage, vehicle x 3, health insurance for 4 people, a policy to cover repairs to my heating and electrical systems, and possibly others I forgot to list.

These all renew at different time of course, which makes for a certain amount of extra work, but it also occurred to me that I spend a lot of money on insurance too.

Is there such a thing as a policy that can cover some or all of these things in one? I guess it's unlikely one underwriter can cover them all, but do any companies provide a service that does?

Obviously if it cost more, it wouldn't be worth doing, but I was wondering if I can save time and money on this.

forgotmyname

Yes you can. But is it cost effective, Probably not.

Save time yes, Pay someone £10k a year to keep your policies upto date.

Save money then unlikely. Its unlikely that one company will be competetive on all your cover required.

sdrio

forgotmyname wrote: »

Yes you can. But is it cost effective, Probably not.

Save time yes, Pay someone £10k a year to keep your policies upto date.

Save money then unlikely. Its unlikely that one company will be competetive on all your cover required.

OK, thanks.

I assume the £10k number was an exaggeration . . . that's probably about what I spend on all my insurance in total!

forgotmyname

I wouldnt do it for less than £10k a year. But if someone else manages your insurance you will want to hold them liable for any failings wont you?

InsideInsurance

There are a couple who have created something like this but they are not as broad as you want. Given there are fundamental differences between General Insurance (home, motor etc) and Life (inc things like critical illness etc) then you are highly unlikely to find the these two combined.

The ones that I am aware of are all aimed at the Mid Net Worth kind of level of people who are seen as cash rich/ time poor and so will be willing to pay a premium for the "convenience" of having just one policy that covers "everything" and so one renewal date etc.

I did some work for a company to look to introduce the same for them and certainly in their case it was going to be predominately marketing gloss and technically behind the scenes there would be multiple policies that just happen to renew on the same date.

Direct Line Select is one such proposition and their "one policy" covers Home, Home Emergency, Car, Pet, Breakdown & Travel with the ability to have multiple homes, cars, pets etc under the policy. http://www.directline.com/select-premier

From the insurers side it suddenly makes it much more of a ball ache for you ever to move away as its not just 1 car quote that you have to do to cross compare your renewal to others but 4 cars, 2 homes, 3 pet etc all on the same day.

sdrio

forgotmyname wrote: »

I wouldnt do it for less than £10k a year. But if someone else manages your insurance you will want to hold them liable for any failings wont you?

I'm sure it's a valuable service, but if my insurance spend is such that using it would double my costs, it's not going to help me much.

I'd assume it would be more used by companies than individuals.

sdrio

InsideInsurance wrote: »

There are a couple who have created something like this but they are not as broad as you want. Given there are fundamental differences between General Insurance (home, motor etc) and Life (inc things like critical illness etc) then you are highly unlikely to find the these two combined.

The ones that I am aware of are all aimed at the Mid Net Worth kind of level of people who are seen as cash rich/ time poor and so will be willing to pay a premium for the "convenience" of having just one policy that covers "everything" and so one renewal date etc.

I did some work for a company to look to introduce the same for them and certainly in their case it was going to be predominately marketing gloss and technically behind the scenes there would be multiple policies that just happen to renew on the same date.

Direct Line Select is one such proposition and their "one policy" covers Home, Home Emergency, Car, Pet, Breakdown & Travel with the ability to have multiple homes, cars, pets etc under the policy. http://www.directline.com/select-premier

From the insurers side it suddenly makes it much more of a ball ache for you ever to move away as its not just 1 car quote that you have to do to cross compare your renewal to others but 4 cars, 2 homes, 3 pet etc all on the same day.

OK, thanks.

I might have been a little optimistic with this idea.

stator

I'm surprised broker websites don't offer this kind of service. They could do all the shopping around behind the scenes for you and you pay in one single monthly direct debit. It would make customers less likely to switch when it's all taken care of. They just have to periodically log in to the website and confirm no new accidents or changes etc.

sdrio

stator wrote: »

I'm surprised broker websites don't offer this kind of service. They could do all the shopping around behind the scenes for you and you pay in one single monthly direct debit. It would make customers less likely to switch when it's all taken care of. They just have to periodically log in to the website and confirm no new accidents or changes etc.

That was kind of what I was thinking of, but seems not for the end of the market I'm in.

InsideInsurance

stator wrote: »

I'm surprised broker websites don't offer this kind of service. They could do all the shopping around behind the scenes for you and you pay in one single monthly direct debit. It would make customers less likely to switch when it's all taken care of. They just have to periodically log in to the website and confirm no new accidents or changes etc.

One of the challenges is getting the harmonised renewal date, getting insurers to agree to selling a 300 day Home Policy so that it can be added to the portfolio when the existing one expires etc

Another is having the delegated authority for at a minimum claims notification but really at least mid level claims too so when theres a storm that damages the house, a pair of the cars and means they have to cancel their holiday whilst its sorted you get the slickness of a single policy rather than 4 insurers with 4 different questionnaires with different approved repairers etc

Cant remember the other MNW one off hand but it is distributed by brokers though the whole policy is underwritten by a single insurer so they are not broking the business.

There is the other option of a simpler "manage your insurance for you" type service, which to some degree is what brokers are doing for you but that isnt really what the OP was asking for