Best (not necessarily cheapest) home insurance

City_Girl_3

I'm looking for new building and content insurance and while there's many sites that can tell me who the cheapest home insurance is for my needs, they don't tell me how good the insurer is in the event of a claim.

Last year I had to make a claim for my rental flat - this was on a policy bought by the freeholders with Zurich.  It was just awful - a complete fight to get very basic things covered, and in the end they didn't accept the quotes we received an appointed their own contractor who did a very mediocre job (the finish was poor and not comparable to what we had before).

So having just extended and refurbished my house, I want to be sure I'm going to get a reasonable insurer who isn't looking to 'nickel and dime' us to death if we ever needed to make a claim.

Any suggestions on how I can easily compare?

JJ_Egan

Direct Line for me .Never seen any comparison of who pays out more claims .

dunstonh

rest assured that the cheapest will not be the best.  Not even close.

Generally, if you ignore the comparison sites and go to the top end providers then they promote quality over premium.  Sometimes the premium difference are not that great but they will almost certainly be more expensive than the top 10 on a comparison site.

Sandtree

City_Girl_3 said:

Any suggestions on how I can easily compare?

You can't to be honest, many insurers don't have just a single proposition and buying their "tesco value" product is clearly going to be different to their "tesco finest". Add white labeled services etc and it gets even more complex.

There are insurers aimed at High Net Worth individuals who have a Mid Net Worth feeder products for those moving up in the world but their focus is on quality of product rather than price. The likes of Hiscox fit in this category with their 606 for HNW via brokers but offering a direct product. For a start its an "all risks" policy so damage is covered unless its explicitly excluded -v- normal Home which is written on an insured peril basis where you have to show an insured peril caused the damage.

Certain stories float about occasionally about some of these insurers go way over any reasonable expectation to deal with claims which for your average insurer would have been settled by a set of vouchers turning up in the post.

Alter_ego

NFU has been good.

City_Girl_3

dunstonh said:

rest assured that the cheapest will not be the best.  Not even close.

Generally, if you ignore the comparison sites and go to the top end providers then they promote quality over premium.  Sometimes the premium difference are not that great but they will almost certainly be more expensive than the top 10 on a comparison site.

Thanks.  Is it just a case then of looking at the more expensive insurers?  Seems to go completely against what Martin Lewis has been drilling into my head all these years LOL

Sandtree

City_Girl_3 said:
Thanks.  Is it just a case then of looking at the more expensive insurers?  Seems to go completely against what Martin Lewis has been drilling into my head all these years LOL

As already said, its really more complex than that... you can look at the likes of NFU that are a solid middle market player and don't do any budget products and know you'll get good cover. You can look at the step up with the likes of Hiscox and pick their lower product which is a step or two above NFU.

People like Aviva do the whole spectrum so some of their products are comfortably on a par with NFU but some, particularly via some MGAs, are much more bargain basement. But still you have those not domiciled in the UK that are probably below those too.

Low price is a reasonable proxy for poor quality but high price isnt a good proxy for high quality... as an insurer I may decide I don't really want to insure more people in SE1 because I am starting to have a high concentration and so I push my prices up... products the same quality but price is 30% more.

Not sure if you really mean Martin or this website given he sold it many years ago and just licenses his name to be used on it. In a year that you will make no claims the most money saving is not to have any insurance at all. Unfortunately we only know that with hindsight and so people have to choose if to buy cheap and have cover limits or pay expensive and probably never benefit from the higher protection. This site has predominately recommended the former but then again its also strongly recommend price comparison sites (who pay out very nice commissions for being recommended) and the race to the bottom.

Its not that uncommon that posts are made here saying followed sites advice, bought cheap and now my insurer is saying X isnt covered etc

dunstonh

As an example, I have a four bedroom house.   My postcode with four bedrooms would get my building insurance around £80 a year.  Contends probably another £150.    Lets say £250 a year.  I pay over £2500 a year.

I get better value from that £2500 than I would from the £250.  

This site is owned by a comparison site. It promotes the use of comparison sites.  Yet a comparison site product would be false economy to me.  However, to others, it could be the right decision.    It can very much depend on the type of property you have and what you own.

City_Girl_3

The three insurers that are coming up in my price comparisons that are not necessarily the cheapest but also not most expensive are Admiral, More Than and Halifax.  Direct line is around 15% more and will call NFU for a quote.  I've been with Halifax for many years but never had to make a claim so can only comment on their sales customer service.  I suspect they might be a bit tricky in the event of a claim. Anyone have experience with More Than or Admiral?  Where do they sit in the market?
(I'm really not familiar with who are the mid and high end players in home insurance - lots of brands I recognise but no idea where they fit)

Sandtree

Admiral, on its car insurance side would be a below mid point play. Reasonable cover, ok service but a few quirks and a big push on non-fault accidents to claims management companies. I don't know their Home offering well but most brands tend to be broadly consistent.

More Than are written by their sister company RSA who are in the process of being sold and broken up. RSA is like Aviva in that its a long term bit company and so has many different products at different levels. More Than conceptually I would put above Admiral however this is purely on a brand target and not on a side by side comparison of the cover levels offered.

NFU could be worth a call but they quote me silly money prices due to wanting out of home coverage for when the Mrs goes out with her jewellery and I have my camera which all together adds up to a pretty penny... their PP quote was almost the same as our insurers M&S Premier (Aviva) but with an extra 0

kingstreet

If you start with this;-

https://defaqto.com/star-ratings/home-insurance

you will know which provider's offering is the one with the highest rating.

For example, Halifax Home Insurance Ultimate is top-rated but it also has mid-rated Halifax Home Insurance. This is a starting point for the comparison process.