Free Contents cover!!

BargainChaser

Recieved a door drop from British Gas telling me to get a quote and recieve free contents cover when i purchase buildings! typed in British Gas Home Insurance and used the code FREE3 and it tells you how much youve saved which was almost £100 for me and beat my renewal premium! great work!

InsideInsurance

British Gas Home insurance is a 2* or 3* product, depending on if you choose the higher limits or not.

If that is sufficient for your needs then fantastic but the quality of Home insurance varies massively and it can be very much false economy to buy an ultra budget policy when it comes to claims time

David_InsDef

When you look at the number of insurance complaints to the FOS by provider, British Gas are very often in the top 3. Make of that what you will.

Then again it is free. But, IMHO this just confirms the saying that whilst you can't polish a turd - you can roll it in glitter......

BargainChaser

i thought Defaqto was just a rating mechanism as to what the product includes as standard? you can still add AD, legal etc... you just have to pay for it... and thanks David but i checked and it must be for some of their other insurance products. the home insurance looks like its undewritten by AXA which have an excellent reputation and handle the claims so im confident ive got a bargain. lets wait and see anyways!

InsideInsurance

BargainChaser wrote: »

i thought Defaqto was just a rating mechanism as to what the product includes as standard? you can still add AD, legal etc... you just have to pay for it... and thanks David but i checked and it must be for some of their other insurance products. the home insurance looks like its undewritten by AXA which have an excellent reputation and handle the claims so im confident ive got a bargain. lets wait and see anyways!

It is a crude tool, just as hotel start ratings are, but its much easier than do a line by line comparison.

Optional extras are partially factored in, but there are many things (eg matching set, T&A cover etc) which cannot be added in as an optional extra and so you simply have to decide if one kitchen cupboard door is destroyed are you happy with having a non-matching one or would you want all the doors replaced so they matched?

Who the underwriter is isnt always relevant. I did work with an MGA (a company with delegated authority from the insurer) and so the paperwork says its underwritten by Axa but in practice Axa are nothing but the point of last resort. In reality the MGA set the terms, prices, service level etc.

Now this company doesnt do much direct to consumer sales at all but mainly does white label sales with big brands that want to be able to offer travel insurance to their customers. When a new company approaches them they have a choice of standard wording or some tweaks, they can pay more so their customers telephone calls are answered first or if a claim for 3hr 59 min delay gets rejected for being under 4 hours or paid. Do they want weekend customer service to be there? Evenings? etc. All of this generated a wholesale price for the product and then the brand was free to sell the policy for whatever price they wanted as long as it was above the wholesale price.

Some companies added all the bells and whistles and sold it with next to no markup, probably at a loss when you factor in their advertising costs. Others stripped everything out they could but put a 150% markup on it and so retail price was higher than the full fat ones.


It is sensible to look at the insurer but its worth taking it with a pinch of salt. Most the big players do cover the full spectrum from ultra budget to HNW and some affinity deals do seem very odd in that a good brand chooses a budget insurance partner.

the_wheels_have_fallen_of

BargainChaser wrote: »

Recieved a door drop from British Gas telling me to get a quote and recieve free contents cover when i purchase buildings! typed in British Gas Home Insurance and used the code FREE3 and it tells you how much youve saved which was almost £100 for me and beat my renewal premium! great work!

What a bargain !!! Ive just had a quote from them with the code you suggested - great cover on contents too for 65k .... cheaper than any other of the "big" insurers and underwritten by AXA !!!