Home insurance LV or Direct LIne

micklemuckle

I got my renewal quote from LV  on my home insurance and it was exactly the same as last year, the excess total is £ 350. Comparison sites  showed LV higher than my renewal qoute. It also showed Direct Line £ 40 cheaper or the same price as LV if I lowered the excess down to £ 100. I rang LV and asked if they  would they lower my premium or reduce the excess to match DL, they were having none of it, they wouldn't budge an inch.

Looking at reviews on trustpilot DL seem to have a very much higher rate of bad reviews, although these included car insurance claims, where blame is harder to prove. has anyone else got LV to haggle ? Thanks for your opinions

Sandtree

Are the product features the same in terms of things like "trace and access" or "matching sets" which can vary considerably between providers.  Similarly are definitions like Valuables etc similar so that you have the correct sums insured with both (valuables is traditionally, jewelry, watches, works of art and precious metals/stones but some lower budget providers include TVs and other things in there too meaning the declared value has to be much higher).

Both are large insurance companies, LV possibly has a slightly better reputation at the moment but it has sold its General Insurance arm recently so if that reputation is maintained, time will tell.  No matter the reputation there is always an element of luck of the draw and ultimately the majority dont get to experience the claims function in a policy year.

micklemuckle

Thanks for the reply Sandtree. When doing comparisons I don't remember any mention of trace and access, I had to google it to know what it meant.I included emergency cover in the policies, howere I noticed with LV it said the limit was £ 500 and although it included repairing a water leak it did not include any damage caused by it. Also it said any repairs done by escaped water had a mandadtory excess of £350. The deeper you dig into these policies the less I like what I read.

Sandtree

Car insurance is fairly basic and 95% basically have the same terms. Home insurance however is actually a very complex product and really should be bought on “value” rather than price. It however is presented as simple on aggregator websites like confused.com who skim over major differences that can easily rationalise price differences.