House Insurance

alan_ni

My renewal for house insurance (buildings and contents) has increased to £368 from £197 with Tesco.  I have checked a couple of comparison sites and the cheapest is about £350.  I have never paid more than £200 before.  Nothing has changed so shocked at such an increase.  Has anyone else experienced such an increase in house insurance premiums recently? 

dunstonh

I have never paid more than £200 before.  Nothing has changed so shocked at such an increase.  Has anyone else experienced such an increase in house insurance premiums recently? 

If you shopped around each year or two then you have lost the early year discounting which is now banned.  

Sandtree

alan_ni said:

My renewal for house insurance (buildings and contents) has increased to £368 from £197 with Tesco.  I have checked a couple of comparison sites and the cheapest is about £350.  I have never paid more than £200 before.  Nothing has changed so shocked at such an increase.  Has anyone else experienced such an increase in house insurance premiums recently? 

Insurance rules were changed this year that says renewing customers cannot be charged more than new customers. Previously your premiums were discount as a new customer at the expense of those that had renewed a couple of times.

The step up in your case seems fairly sever however and therefore would possibly look at other possible causes too like the flood maps being updated or a spate of burglaries in the area etc on top of the above

Bothnor

My house and contents with LV= has crept up from £296 to £323 from 2018 to 2021. This year, the renewal on 8 July went up to £533 (that's +65%!). No claims. no alterations. I queried this and was told that because of changes to FCA rules they had to change their tarriffs. I asked for an example of such a rule and how it had changed things but the call handler was unable to offer anything.
Using CompareTheMarket I got many quotes with, at a rough guess, a median of around £300. So no FCA problems there.
The page on here at /insurance/home-insurance dated 20 July 2022 says, "With standalone buildings and contents insurance prices at their lowest in at least a decade, and combined policies at the cheapest they've been for four years, now's a great time to check if you can save on your home insurance." which suggests the "FCA rules" excuse is either particular or just false.
Any ideas?

JGB1955

Direct Line wanted to charge me an extra £50 for next year, so I just did a comparison and got it back to under £160 again for full cover with accidental damage for both contents and buildings with another provider.  Never paid more than £200 in 35+ years.... even when we lived in London.  Just shop around....  Hopefully the £33 cashback from TopCashback will also pay out sometime... not holding my breath!

CookieRose

My buildings and contents was £168 last year, renewal came through at £395!!!!  I managed to get them down to around £300, however, had to drop some optional extras, reduce cover and increase voluntary excess to achieve that.  Comparison sites returned very limited list of insurers even prepared to quote.  NOTHING has changed, no claims, no building works, no problems.  Neighbours not experiencing any issues with their renewals.  I have an open case with the Financial Ombudsman, as I will not "calm down dear" (that's the clue to the insurer!) over this!  Interestingly just had my car insurance renewal through (not with same company) and it's only going up by £16 from £170 to £186, so there's nothing dramatic linked to the postcode it seems.

DullGreyGuy

CookieRose said:

My buildings and contents was £168 last year, renewal came through at £395!!!!  I managed to get them down to around £300, however, had to drop some optional extras, reduce cover and increase voluntary excess to achieve that.  Comparison sites returned very limited list of insurers even prepared to quote.  NOTHING has changed, no claims, no building works, no problems.  Neighbours not experiencing any issues with their renewals.  I have an open case with the Financial Ombudsman, as I will not "calm down dear" (that's the clue to the insurer!) over this!  Interestingly just had my car insurance renewal through (not with same company) and it's only going up by £16 from £170 to £186, so there's nothing dramatic linked to the postcode it seems.

Home and Motor are totally independent products and its highly unlikely an issue impacting one product would carry over to the other.

You can only complain to the FOS once you have received a final response from the company in question or 8 weeks have passed since your complaint was logged. Anything before this just results in a generally poorly written letter being sent on your behalf to your provider asking them to log a complaint and deal.

Pricing is generally considered a commercial decision and so dont expect to get much out of anyone other than saying these are the rates available for your risk profile.