Home insurance provider

sol2017

Good to learn what's considered quality. It does appear that unfortunately these providers don't insure all properties or cost considerably more than what I've been paying so far (no, not the cheapest available policy).

I did notice that same brands quote different premiums for policy from their own website and comparison website. Not sure if that's because those are different products or because of special pricing through comparison sites.

I'll leave this discussion now, thanks for all comments.

Brie

Had my best and worst service from LV so it just depends on what's happening.  

They were absolutely stellar when we were burgled, efficient, understanding, speedy.  No problems whatsoever and it didn't even really effect our renewal.

They were absolutely dreadful when we needed to use their Homeserve when our toilet broke.  And I mean broke.  a cracked cistern so water everywhere but fortunately no water damage.  The problem though was getting someone to fix our toilet.  Now in their defense I think they believed that Homeserve would sort things out but they didn't.  Every single day I rang HS for an update and they always had some excuse including that it wasn't an emergency as we had a second bathroom - and every day I'd tell them that no, this was our only toilet in the house.  Start to finish I think it took about a month and a half to sort out and return us to having a working toilet.  LV was sympathetic but could have pushed them to get things dealt with more efficiently.  

We've also had great service from AA, NFU and others over the years.  But not had to claim for anything significant except for with LV.

DullGreyGuy

sol2017 said:

I did notice that same brands quote different premiums for policy from their own website and comparison website. Not sure if that's because those are different products or because of special pricing through comparison sites.

Some use differnet products... budget one on aggregator sites, medium one on their website and premium on the phone... some its just a change of the optional extras, exclude all on aggregators and have high excesses, middle ground on their own web and all in with low excess on the phone. 

Certainly some will use different pricing too... customer behaviour is different depending on channel of engagement and that may go as far as impacting pricing. Someone on the phone wanting TPO/TPFT cover may not be the  bad risk that most would consider such a person on an aggregator.

moneysaver128

The OP asks for comments good or bad experiences with LV etc. This post a little late for OP  but maybe of use to others. I have lately had a claim with LV for home insurance and they have been slow despite all information being supplied promptly. They seem to subcontract all work to a non-in house claims adjuster and clean up firms who are always busy or slow to respond. So far dealt with three different entities not including LV themselves. After many years and no claims with LV previously I would not recommend the company now mainly due to this claims experience.They are excellent when selling the policy. Despite their lack of settlement so far they have increased the premium on renewal to nearly double.

dunstonh

moneysaver128 said:

The OP asks for comments good or bad experiences with LV etc. This post a little late for OP  but maybe of use to others. I have lately had a claim with LV for home insurance and they have been slow despite all information being supplied promptly. They seem to subcontract all work to a non-in house claims adjuster and clean up firms who are always busy or slow to respond. So far dealt with three different entities not including LV themselves. After many years and no claims with LV previously I would not recommend the company now mainly due to this claims experience.They are excellent when selling the policy. Despite their lack of settlement so far they have increased the premium on renewal to nearly double.

Be aware, that many of the brands will do that and have similar issues. Especially at the lower/budget/price focused end of the market. 

moneysaver128

Another factor to consider is temporary accommodation in event of major claims involving the house/flat being uninhabitable. It is worth checking with the insurer before buying their policy what provision they are likely to make. Many large insurers will limit what the insured is able to choose and limit it to a Travelodge type room.They normally use a contractor to find these. The prospective customer must decide for themselves  whether that would be suitable if they had a large claim involving living away from the property for any length of time particularly if the were elderly or had a medical condition. There is also the problem that many of these hotels are now full due to Government block booking for immigration purposes.

Smithcom

JudgeDekker said:

I've honestly only ever had bad insurance experiences, so I no longer think it makes any difference who you buy it from. They're all terrible, so just pick the cheapest. I daresay that's a consequence of the comparison sites - the only thing they are really comparing is price, not service. Perhaps if you pay up for a specialist insurer you you would get something better, but I don't know, so I haven't.

Separately I notice that home insurance is up like 25% this year compared with last. Unpleasant.

Every insurer has the ability to be poor, but the better insurers will care enough to put things right. That's my experience.

To think that it makes no difference which insurer you are with, is probably a sub-standard approach to buying insurance, is the most diplomatic terminology that  I can think of.

Also.  Some brokers will add much value to a claim. I saw a claim last year that had been declined by the insurer, and after the broker's involvement, a payment of around £80,000 was agreed.   Depends which broker you are with, whether they care and whether they will add muscle and technical expertise to the claims process.

SC