Worth getting Personal Injury Insurance for Cars and Home Emergency Cover for home?

textbook

Never done it before, but I just got personal injury cover -£19, it means if I break my leg I get £1000 plus £200 for every day in hospital.   Plus bigger amounts if I'm disabled.  As money is tight at the moment wasn't sure whether to bother but did it anyhow.

I got Home insurance for the first time and they offered a thing called home emergency cover, which if your electrics go down they'll send someone around to get started.   £20.  I figured it wasn't worth it.

Grey_Critic

textbook said:

I got Home insurance for the first time and they offered a thing called home emergency cover, which if your electrics go down they'll send someone around to get started.   £20.  I figured it wasn't worth it.

Years ago at 2.00am Christmas Day our youngest (back fro Uni) arrived home from the pub (he had been helping out as they were short staffed)

As usual when he came in late he was was quiet as a lamb - He thought - then I heard water running so got up to find a burst pipe in the kitchen.

Now I had Home Emergency Cover so I rang them. No problem sir do you want someone now or can it wait. Yes have turned the water off and will be up about 7.30am - OK gom back to bed and ring me at 7.30am. I did and when I rang I was told the plumber would be with me shortly - He was - fixed the problem and all was fine - and it was FREE

Bit long winded I know but from time to time I have had a problem the Home Emergency have sortd things. And all for free - some insurers include it for nothing.

The question is do you feel lucky.

tacpot12

But if you saved £19 a month for five years, you would have £1,140 (+interest) and you wouldn't have to breakyour leg in a motor accident or spend any time in hospital! I know what I would rather do. 

Generally, I only buy insurance where it is required by law or the risk I am insuring against is so great that I cannot possible cover the cost myself. So I buy car insurance (because it is required by law), and travel insurance when I go aborad (because of the cost of medical treatment and repatriation), and buildings & contents insurance (because I can't cover the cost of rebuidling my house or replacing all my possessions at once), but I don't have accidental damage cover on my possessions because I'm not going to accidentally damage them all at the same time. If I damage a TV, or a laptop, I can afford to replace it because I have saved up £20/month to do so. I'm happy to have £500-£2000 saved for emergencies, but not £200,000 which would be the cost of rebuidling my home, or £1,000,000 which might be the cost of my medical treatment abroad. 

My advice is only to buy insurance for costs you cannot possibly cover yourself, and to self-insure for all other  eventualities by saving an emergency fund.

Billxx

The advantage of home emergency cover is that it gives you one number to call if you need a plumber/gas engineer/electrician/roofer...  You don't have to ring round trying to find someone who will come out on a Sunday.  I have it as an add-on to my insurance and it costs £3 a month.

DullGreyGuy

Personal Accident traditionally was included in comprehensive insurance as standard however it only covers more significant injuries like loss of limb rather than just a break.  This relatively new add on just extends the cover to more modest injuries however these are still very rare compared to soft tissue/whiplash type injuries. 

The insurance only really applies to fault accidents, if you arent at fault then your injury can be claimed from the third party (or the MIB) irrespective of your level of insurance.  

Home Emergency can be useful if you dont have a handy list of plumbers, electricians etc that you can call on. Do remember that its only to deal with the emergency though and doesnt typically cover doing any reinstatement work after.