First time buyer needs help on home/life insurance

ajwilky

Hi All

New to these forums so first of all thanks for having me!

I've just bought my first home and infact am going to sign my life away at the solicitors tomorrow to finalise everything and should be completing next week.

I used an independant mortgage advisor and went with the Alliance & Leicester in the end. My mortgage advisor is trying to get my to sign up th the insurance he has sorted for me also - but it seems expensive and I'm on a really tight budget.

The buildings and contents insurance are through the Payment Shield and Royal & Sun Alliance, at a cost of £31.75 per month, I was hoping to get home insurance for around £20 per month. I think though the first 3 months are free though however.

House was built approx 1890, and is 3 bedroom mid terrace - price £90,250.

Before I go any further - i'm really new to all this insurance and building and contents lark etc etc so I really don't know much or what I should be looking for and what's best to choose when getting quotes etc. Any help would be great from someone and possibly some suggestions for a cheap but good company to get a quote from?

Also another thing is life insurance. Now do I really need this? I'm a 25 year old with no dependants and when I told my mortgage advisor today I was thinking about not bothering with it, he told me chances are they'd be something in the mortgage details saying I'd need it as the lender need a guarantee they'll get their money if I pop my clogs for example - I looked and there's no mention of life insurance - Only about home insurance. Personally I just think he wants me to choose both his life and home insurance.

So, do I need it? Is it a must? oh by the way, the quote I got for that from him is through AXA and is £14.40 / month and has life and critical illness cover. Maybe im thinking wrongly but if I died then it's not my worry how Alliance and leicester recoup their money is it!

Any help anyone could give me would be really appreciated, oh and sorry for the long post.

p.s. What is this quidco I see mentioned? Will that help me too?

Cheers

Adam

helojones

Hiya

I'm no expert but I'm in a similar position so I've been researching a lot.

I don't think you have to have life assurance, and if you've checked your mortgage and there's no reference to it, I wouldn't bother. You'd be better off spending your money on Income Protection Insurance - stear clear of critical illness - they pay out only for very specific conditions - there's a good chance that should you fall ill, you wouldn't be covered.

Income protection policies can cover you for illness that prevents you working (there are various options - your current job, any work, or various types of work activities). You can also cover yourself for umemployment - this way you'll be able to pay your mortgage should you become ill or find yourself out of work. Shop around a lot and read the small print of all the policies for the best quotes - they tend to vary and you need to be sure the cover is right and covers you for what you think it does.

Martin has an article on Life Assurance that explains a lot of this - just do a search of the main site.

To give you a comparable example for home and contents insurance, I've just got mine through halifax - £13 per month for great cover (most of it is unlimited, new for old etc etc) for a 3 bed new build, rebuild value 150k, so your quote seems quite high. Quidco.com is a cash back site. Register for free and check before you buy anything online cos you can get cashback through simply clicking through to the site your buying from via quidco (there are quite a few of these sites now, so have a look around and register with them all). Eg, I will get £45 cash back for my halifax insurance cos I went through Quidco, making it even cheaper! But there are sometimes problems with cashback (it doesn't always get tracked etc)- so never bank on it until the cash is in your account.

I hope this helps!