Saga, not age friendly. Just another institution!

Primrose

We have a fixed term bond in joint names with Saga which is about to expire and were shocked to find that any accounts we roll over or new account we open with them can only be in single names.

Not a friendly move for older couples who want to ensure that if one of them dies, the remaining partner can still access money while the complexities of probate are being resolved.

I think Saga is trading on its earlier reputation to be looking after the interests of older people. It's just another commercial company. New investors should not be fooled!

longleggedhair

A relative had home insurance with them. They put the premium upto £1000, I got the same cover from elsewhere for them for £150. I would advise people to avoid them.

dunstonh

I think Saga is trading on its earlier reputation to be looking after the interests of older people. It's just another commercial company. New investors should not be fooled!

Saga have been commercially focused for about 20 years now. They have always been easy to beat on home insurance. Their annuity sales service was tied for a period then limited panel and ironically, used the very methods that Ros Altmann has gone on to say were bad even though she was director general of Saga at the time. Not only that, an IFA could beat SAGA on annuity pricing as their commission take was usually higher than the IFA fee. Even on a like for like basis, the quotes from the IFA came in better (i know this as I had a client who got quotes from SAGA and used me to see what I could do and we beat SAGA).

The commercial arms of consumer groups, unions, affinity groups etc are often poor value.

Rollinghome

Saga has always been very successful in presenting itself as in some way less commercial than other companies.

It never has been, ever since Sidney De Haan began the company after shrewdly spotting that the elderly could potentially be very profitable. Saga has successfully targetted that group with the PR help of people such as Ros Altmann.

It's since been owned by a private equity company before recently being floated as a listed company. The present CEO, Lance Batchellor, was previously CEO of Dominos Pizza and Tesco Mobile before that: so we shouldn't expect Saga to be run so differently from any pizza or moble phone company (but perhaps without the two-for one pizzas) and certainly no less hard-nosed.

Primrose

It concerns me that companies and charities whose commercial profiles are oriented mainly towards the elderly should be marketing themselves in the way that they do though. A lot of older people seem to think they will be getting a more sympathetic deal because of some kind of allegedly charitable connection. We saw it recently with one of the charities for the elderly with fuel tariffs I believe.

The motto has to be caveat emptor. Any business with shareholders will always put commercial interests first but the marketing policies of charitable organisations should perhaps be more closely examined.

Deneb

My MIL still has unbreakable loyalty to British Gas, because they're the gas board! Even after they tried to sell her a new boiler for over £4K and I then fixed the old one for £7. I didn't need to be Corgi registered, because the repair simply involved pulling off a plastic dial and pushing on the replacement that I bought from a local plumbing merchant.

Eco_Miser

Primrose wrote: »

The motto has to be caveat emptor. Any business with shareholders will always put commercial interests first but the marketing policies of charitable organisations should perhaps be more closely examined.

A charity should be run for the benefit of its beneficiaries, in exactly the same way as a normal business is run for the benefit of its shareholders. Therefore caveat emptor indeed, even when the emptor is within the class of beneficiaries. The marketing arm is not the charity.

greenglide

Unlike other organisations (Age UK, Diabetes UK, Dementia UK, Macmillan etc ...........) Saga is a company which trades by selling products which are aimed at older people. It does sponsor charities in the same way that most commercial organisations do. Age UK etc are charities which have trading operations to raise money to spend in their charitable activities.

Saga exists for the benefit of their shareholders in the same way that British Gas does. Charities exit to carry out their charitable activities (whatever they are) - a totally different business model.

I don't think I like the Saga business model but I have never bought anything from them.

Pincher

Just the SAGA Platinum for me. It's good for overseas spending.

On the other hand, maybe SAGA holidays are great for over 50s swingers. Club 50 - 65? Viagra Club?

teddysmum

We have one car insured with them (They refused to insure the other a Punto Sporting; odd as they insured my sister's Mazda5) and they did want to raise the premium by 25% after I had a no cost to them no fault accident, but were talked into a couple of pounds and do offer cheap AA insurance at just £19 with more callouts than AA direct allow.


Regarding the joint account for older people, I think separate accounts are better, as from a joint account the contents are taken as 50/50 , which can go against the spouse left at home if the other has to self fund care.