Barclays Home Buildings / Contents Insurance Renewal....

swanny65

Hi

Just received my Barclays renewal premium for the above with accidential damage on both and legal expenses insurance. Excess £100.00. Price £237.96. Barclays have also added in a £1.00 pcm DD charge. A bit naughtly?

Been online http://www.moneysupermarket.com/home/?p=0&Source=GOOHOME1 and got a comparison price. The cheapest - Barclays at £188.00 - £50.00 discount via their link = £133.00.

Telephoned Barclays and was advised the best they can do is reduce my renewal by £50.00 if i email them the internet quote. I need to email someone with a Norwich Union e-mail address. Obviously NU administer my policy and the online price is likely to be with a different insurer.

Re-checked online tonight and the fully discount price is now £129.10 with no additional fee for paying by monthly DD. At no point have the call centre staff said i cant renew online and i have declared i have existing Barclays policy, allbeit the current home insurance.

Is this allowed?

millymollymandy2K7

Norwich Union are underwriters for Barclays insurance and it is NU who operate the call centre for the insurance. I would imagine that the online quote would also be underwritten by NU. If you do sign up online its best to check with the call centre that you only have 1 policy running as you may find that the online policy will start and your original policy will renew - thus leaving you in the position of having two policies (as well as being expensive I also believe this to be illegal).

Its always best to contact your insurer if you do not wish to renew as often the small print states policies will renew automatically. ( I know this doesn't really have anything to do with your question, but its surprising how many people do not realise this)

Rhino666

millymollymandy2K7 wrote: »

Its always best to contact your insurer if you do not wish to renew as often the small print states policies will renew automatically. ( I know this doesn't really have anything to do with your question, but its surprising how many people do not realise this)

I am in this position as paid £110.15 for home and contents insurance with Barclays last year and their quote was over £250 for this year. I found insurance for £149 elsewhere and cancelled the DD with Barclays. Unfortunately the insurance is renewed automatically with Barclays - what kind of joke is that ?
I phoned them and need to send proof of my new insurance. As the previous poster pointed out dual insurance is not allowed and allows me to get out of £20 of Barclays premiums. This is very silly and many get caught out. Both my cars are currently with Barclays - I guess the same thing will happen when these policies appear to have expired.
I look for small print when it logically should be there - expecting my insurance to renew automatically without my authority is totally illogical and totally unreasonable especially when the premium has more than doubled.

Rant over but hopefully others insured with Barclays have been forewarned

noh

Yes they do renew automatically but, to be fair, they write to you about a month before expiry to inform you of the new premium and tell you if you wish to continue with the insurance you need to do nothing if you wish to cancel you need to call so it should be no surprise. Why didn't you cancel your DD as soon as the last installment was made?
My first year of buildings insurance with Barclays was £95 this years renawal was £135. I moved to Lloyds TSB which is £72 with £120 cashback via Quidco (they pay me £48 to take out insurance). Unfortunately Lloyds now have become wise to the splitting of contents and buldings insurance and now only offer £60 on each.

Nigel

Rhino666

Hi Noh

I did cancel the DD straignt away and they wrote to me to advise that the insurance had automatically renewed and they needed to claim payment from somewhere - not sure what would have happened if payment on the new policy had been claimed.

Just been reading about someone whose motorbike was written off and he was unable to cancel his policy to claim back part of the unused premium. I think that insurers are playing a few very underhand tricks at the moment and people need to spend more time than I did reading the small print.