Cheapest Boiler Cover Discussion

humphreyhumphrey

So, my renewal came in today for my homecare agreement - £60 more than last year.

I called their freephone number, gave them a couple of minutes to think about it and the bloke came back and offered me a 12% discount - keeping the cover at the same price as this year! :j:j

Watch out for this - it'd be easy to miss this if you're not careful.

k18dan

Anyone know of an insurance company that will insure a 7 year old + boiler?

All of the company's I have approached will not entertain anything over 7 years..

jonniebournemouth

Avoid Boilershield .co.uk like the plague. They rang my 85 y/old Mother, even though she is on the Telephone preference list and conned her out of £199 believing her boiler needed servicing even though it's serviced by Valliant. They won't refund the money for 28 days and make you hang on a chargeable 0843 number for ages. They have an aggressive telemarketing team and they don't record calls! Beware

Richard_F_Walker

I'm with First Call Gas and pay just £9.99 per month but I'm afraid they only operate in Yorkshire at the moment.

SueC_2

Caulkheader wrote: »

We have had this cover for three years, making two claims. The first claim was poorly handled, little communication or coordination.

The current claim started last Thursday.

Thursday -called Scottish Power hotline. Promised an engineer that evening, no show. Telephoned again to be told that the engineers finished at seven and we shouldn't have been promised a call. Re booked for Friday. Lodged complaint, promised a call within 24hrs from customer services.

Friday - day off work, couldn't promise morning or afternoon call, arrived at 6.30 pm. Confirmed my diagnosis of defective motorised valve. Promised call on Monday.

Monday - No call

Tuesday - No Call, rang customer care and was told to wait until Thursday. Queried lack of contact from Customer Services. 30 minute wait in queue for call to be answered.

Thursday - No call from engineer (City Mech) but did get a call from Customer Services promising an engineer with the part would call after 3pm Friday.

Friday - Arrived home from work at 2.30 pm to find two answer phone messages from the engineer saying he called and we were not in!

Total incompetence, poor communication and inaccessible staff (its impossible to ring customer services directly or the scheduling department) To compound this all they have to do is fit a £40 Drayton motor to the valve, this is available from virtually any heating suppliers and is connected with three wires.

I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt but now as soon as our tie in with Scottish Power is at an end we will be leaving them. This is advertised as 'Emergency Cover' - it patently isn't and when queried they are keen to point out that they do answer the phones 24/7 but don't guarantee attendance or repair times. Emergency cover - I think not.

A cold week end awaits and potentially 11 days without heating, thank you Scottish Power for your non existent levels of service or customer care.

Please excuse my ignorance, but what is the connection between Scottish Power and Homeserve? I'm in the process of trying to identify the best cover (current conclusion: they're all as rubbish as each other), but thought Scottish Power and Homeserve were two separate providers...?

Simonnothappy

Boilershield in Croydon
Avoid Boilershield .co.uk like the plague. They rang my 85 y/old Mother, even though she is on the Telephone preference list and conned her out of £199 believing her boiler needed servicing even though it's serviced by Valliant. They won't refund the money for 28 days and make you hang on a chargeable 0843 number for ages. They have an aggressive telemarketing team and they don't record calls! Beware

I have had exactly the same experience pressursied coldcall selling to elderly relative of unneeded insurance .Relative is also Tps ...useless..also serviced by valliant prehaps where the phone list came from.The cooling off is a short 7 days ,i was given the wrong address to cancel delibertly buy noticed. Only pressure from her bank has worked so far and even then thay have attempted to keep £100 as an admin fee.......
Very dubious practices so worrying i have been motived to post here googling thier name brings up other examples....as the other post says. BEWARE!

johnbhoy10

Would appreciate any thoughts as i haven't a clue about boilers/CH system.

On Homecare with British Gas and they were out to sort my boiler a couple of weeks ago as had no hot water but CH appeared fine. They replaced diaphragm and sorted it. All good so far. When i booked engineer initially i had mentioned a rad in the hall had sprung a leak in the summer and they said they would look at that too. That was a bonus and genuinely didn't expect this as had being costing similar radiators recently. Anyway, their engineer has fitted new rad in hall and powerflush quote to follow. Fair enough so far.

Now here's the thing. Guy showed me water that ran out of rad and as i expected it ran out pretty black. So way i understand it they won't replace another rad if system is not cleaned. Again fair enough. Next thing he said is what really interested me. He pretty much said that the problem i've got now is that a lot of boiler problems can be put down to poor water quality also. Straight away i'm thinking to myself the value of this cover is decreasing every time he says something. With 2 kids i'm not doing anything drastic like cancelling but sounds as they almost want you to with a statement like this.

I'm going to phone them but any thoughts. Think after the winter i might either cancel or scale back to boiler only and put pennies aside for future problems. Obviously it's only their powerflushes that would come with any guarantees and chap said i can expect a quote of around £650.:beer:

johnbhoy10

Haha! Just off the phone to them and it's as i thought! Looks like 'engineers discretion' more than ever now. I did mention that i had received a powerflush quote a few years ago (maybe 2/3) so how come you've replaced the rad now if i've already been quoted. She said some engineers only go back so far. The girl was fairly knowledgeable and basically said 'it's up to you' how you want to go forward. She said go with Joe Bloggs down the road no problem but if they do a flush beware of guarantees/damage to system etc. This BG quote of £650 with 'LIFETIME GUARANTEE' is almost starting to sound attractive.

alanskio

I had Homecare 400 downgraded to 200 for many years. New boiler fitted 2005 and paid for Power Flush. Needed reflushing 2 years ago which I had to produce Invoice as proof of payment. Told at the time, Lifetime of the System guarantee and any further needs would be cost free. PROVIDING YOU HAVE A CONTINUOUS HOMECARE PRODUCT IN PLACE.
Therefore, have every year that passes it becomes more expensive due to boiler age, callouts etc and I cannot go elsewhere despite reading things on this website in saving many and doing comparisons. Already moved my dual fuel from them to Scottish Power and tied into a fixed deal (no withdrawal penalties) which is still a lot cheap than any comparison until it runs out next year.
If you in the same situation, please check nothing ties you into having the Boiler etc Insurance. Otherwise you wont be covered by any possible new provider for Power Flush or anything else tied in.

Hope you all can get good deals, but read the small print.

alanskio

johnbhoy10 wrote: »

Would appreciate any thoughts as i haven't a clue about boilers/CH system.


I'm going to phone them but any thoughts. Think after the winter i might either cancel or scale back to boiler only and put pennies aside for future problems. Obviously it's only their powerflushes that would come with any guarantees and chap said i can expect a quote of around £650.:beer:

Johnbhoy10
Please see my comments after your next thread as might be useful if you already havn't paid for that Power flush. Sold to me when New boiler installed as made sense to clean system out to protect boiler and rad parts etc, but at that time, ONLY told about LIFETIME GUARANTEE, then I think they rewrote the contact T&C's as nothing in my files in the FREE 12 months of Homecare I received at the time. On their site at present, lowest cover if Boiler and Controls for £4 per month BUT with a £99 excess each time you call them. Fine as Power flush isn't costing me any further amounts. You can ONLY get this and other cover offers IF YOU ARE A NEW SUBSCRIBER. It's as if they knew Martin Lewis :money:was doing comparisons. Good Luck.