Worcester Bosch Boiler Protection Plan - beware!

Si_Clist

For the last 10 years, we've had a "Protection Plan" with Domestic and General for our Worcester Bosch central heating boiler. It started at £10 a month and is currently £20.25. Yesterday I realised that it's nearly 12 months since our last annual service, so I rang WB to arrange for the engineer to call. The earliest appointment they could give me was in August, by which time it'll be 15 months since our last annual service.

Thinking this would put me in breach of the terms of the protection plan, I queried that today with WB and was told that I needn't worry: the annual service doesn't have to be every 12 months!

But it got better. Apparently as long as the service is done before March 2018, which would be 22 months since the last one, that's OK as far as WB are conerned.

It may be OK with them, but it's certainly not OK with me. To my way of thinking they're pulling a fast one, so as of lunchtime today I no longer have a WB boiler protection plan and they no longer have £20.25 a month from me.

IAmWales

It was poor value from the beginning. For up to six years you'll have had consumer rights should an inherent fault occur. In the ten years you have been paying you'll have easily paid more than the cost of a new boiler.

Hoof_Hearted

Crazy money. A boiler service from a decent local company is about £60 to £70 and you have a relationship with them if anything goes wrong. These service contracts are a rip off.

Si_Clist

IAmWales wrote: »

For up to six years you'll have had consumer rights should an inherent fault occur.

Having that right and getting the fault repaired ASAP when our particular circumstances made that essential are two entirely different things.

IAmWales wrote: »

In the ten years you have been paying you'll have easily paid more than the cost of a new boiler.

Not so. I know what you're getting at, but I've done the sums properly on several occasions over those years, and at no point had we paid what it would have cost us to have a new boiler installed plus however many annual services we'd had so far.

If I hadn't discovered that WB are no longer providing the service we were paying for, we'd probably keep it going if we still needed the quickest possible repair when required. But we no longer need that, and I reckon WB have a confounded cheek reducing their costs/increasing their profits by stretching the service intervals.

And as for local boiler blokes doing the servicing for £60 or so, yes some of them can, although the going rate round here is actually £80+. But repairs are a different matter: have you ever asked one of them what it's like getting spares for a WB boiler, never mind getting them quickly? Then there's the question of how much they'd charge for the job. The protection plan meant the bloke turned up with the spares, and did the job at no extra cost.

neilmcl

IAmWales wrote: »

It was poor value from the beginning. For up to six years you'll have had consumer rights should an inherent fault occur. In the ten years you have been paying you'll have easily paid more than the cost of a new boiler.

Twice over.

macman

WB are the most popular brand in the UK, spares are readily available, though after 10 years it gets more tricky.
How many call outs have you actually had in those 10 years, other than annual servicing (which would have cost you £800, wheareas you've paid out something in excess of £2-2.4K in that time)?
And most WB's installed around 2007 would have had a 3-5 year warranty anyway, if it was a new install when the cover started.

wary

We have one of these service plans, although only due to the fact that it would be used to cover the pending repair whose cost was almost as much as the annual plan. It is now into its second year and in all fairness, we've called them out a few times so have probably had good value from it.

Re the annual service, the arrangement is that they'll call you between April & September ... but never did. Luckily I'd left myself a diary entry to that effect and so chased them, and received the service just prior to the policy anniversary date.

fred246

I was at my parents house while they had a Worcester Bosch boiler installed. The installer was saying how they were marvelous boilers. "I've had one for years. It just goes on and on. It's never been serviced". I was laughing at him "I don't think your supposed to say that!". I was at the gym recently and two gas installers were talking about servicing. One said that a mate of his was just too fast. "You've got to talk to the customer, ask them about the boiler and then mess about a bit. You can't be in and out in 2 minutes. It looks bad."

ThumbRemote

IAmWales wrote: »

It was poor value from the beginning. For up to six years you'll have had consumer rights should an inherent fault occur. In the ten years you have been paying you'll have easily paid more than the cost of a new boiler.

macman wrote: »

WB are the most popular brand in the UK, spares are readily available, though after 10 years it gets more tricky.
How many call outs have you actually had in those 10 years, other than annual servicing (which would have cost you £800, wheareas you've paid out something in excess of £2-2.4K in that time)?
And most WB's installed around 2007 would have had a 3-5 year warranty anyway, if it was a new install when the cover started.

But they are not paying just for the statutory rights - the price includes both the annual service and the guarantee of a rapid resolution if there is a fault (boiler insurance)

I have British Gas boiler cover, and to my mind the annual service is worthwhile, particularly because I don't have any desire to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

It also means in the event of a fault I have a straightforward route to getting it fixed. No, I haven't had a fault for a number of years, but neither has my house burned down and I still have buildings insurance. You can't do a purely financial cost-benefit analysis of insurance cover, because much of the benefit is peace of mind.

Only this week someone posted this in the consumer rights forum: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5646457
I'm happy to pay a set fee each month to avoid that scenario.

kwikbreaks

On old boilers the servicing involved a bit of dismantling and cleaning of the burners etc. On modern boilers it just seems to involve plugging a meter in a port at the top and checking some readings. I doubt they do very much at all.

That said boilers do go wrong and I was glad I had a service plan a few years back as my boiler was causing the mains to trip. It happened while I was away from home (I'd forgotten to set it in eco mode so it periodically fired to enable pretty much instant hot water) and a freezer full of food was ruined -not worth claiming for because of the insurance excess. I didn't even twig what had caused the trip for a while but when I did it got fixed pretty much immediately.

The reason I binned the plan was twofold - the cost started to look poor value and I twice got no shows for the service appointment having returned home specially for it (I spend most of the summer at my holiday caravan).

teddysmum

I pay £50 for our service and the man is now WB accredited, though he wasn't when he fitted the boiler.


Because of the requirement for an annual service ,to make the warranty valid, I rang WB to ask if there was a requirement that the service was actually done at 12 month intervals and the reply was that there is some leeway (I think it was 3 months).