Home insurance for child minders

Veteransaver

Hi all, first post, I'm trying to get home insurance quotes to include childminding. If you use comparison sites they only seem to offer "business use" which does increase the premium significantly
I've found that Tesco insurance and Directline however cover this childminding under their standard policy so can work out a lot cheaper
Is anyone aware of any others?
Tesco was quite competitive for me over the last few years but isn't so good now so I was trying to get a few other quotes.

DullGreyGuy

Which way round is it? Are you a childminder having other people's children in your home or do you have kids that a childminder comes over to look after in your home?

Veteransaver

DullGreyGuy said:

Which way round is it? Are you a childminder having other people's children in your home or do you have kids that a childminder comes over to look after in your home?

First one. As in running a business from home

turnitround

Im not sure I understand the question as you would have to have 'business use' on your insurance anyway.

Veteransaver

turnitround said:

Im not sure I understand the question as you would have to have 'business use' on your insurance anyway.

Some home insurance policies include Childminding as standard - Tesco and Directline do. The same way they usually include business use "Clerical use" only, eg working from home.
Eg whilst the policy specifically excludes business use except for "Clerical, Childminding" etc

DullGreyGuy

veteranmse said:

turnitround said:

Im not sure I understand the question as you would have to have 'business use' on your insurance anyway.

Some home insurance policies include Childminding as standard - Tesco and Directline do. The same way they usually include business use "Clerical use" only, eg working from home.
Eg whilst the policy specifically excludes business use except for "Clerical, Childminding" etc

Are you sure Direct Line does? There is no mention of childminding in their policy book whereas Tesco does confirm you don't need to inform them about childminding 

Veteransaver

DullGreyGuy said:

veteranmse said:

turnitround said:

Im not sure I understand the question as you would have to have 'business use' on your insurance anyway.

Some home insurance policies include Childminding as standard - Tesco and Directline do. The same way they usually include business use "Clerical use" only, eg working from home.
Eg whilst the policy specifically excludes business use except for "Clerical, Childminding" etc

Are you sure Direct Line does? There is no mention of childminding in their policy book whereas Tesco does confirm you don't need to inform them about childminding 

That's interesting - policy booklet stays quite silent on it, but when you go to get a quote it has this: 

Please read and confirm the following statements are true.

The home you're insuring:

• Is your main residence that's permanently occupied by you and your family only.
• Isn't left unoccupied for more than 60 days in a row.
• Is kept in a good state of repair.
• Is self-contained with its own front door.
• Is roofed with slate, tile, concrete, metal, rubber (EPDM) or asphalt.
• Isn't used for business purposes other than paperwork, telephone calls, child-minding and computer work.

I may go with the Directline quote - better make sure I screenshot that part of the quote process

Veteransaver

Just by way of update in case anyone is interested, I contacted Privilege via their online chat (having gone via GoCompare via Top Cashback as you get £38 cashback plus free £250 excess cover) and they confirmed that childminding is fine on their standard policy (as long as it's a registered childminder obviously). I saved a copy of the chat down should I ever need to make a claim and there are any issues.
I assume Churchill do as well as they are the same company, but the quote from Privilege was cheaper anyway.
Note that Churchill and Privilege are part of Directline anyway so it makes sense

So in summary it looks like Tesco, Directline, Privilege and Churchill include it.
I couldn't find any others but was more than happy with the Privilege quote
I'm surprised they don't make more of it to get more business.

DullGreyGuy

Veteransaver said:

I'm surprised they don't make more of it to get more business.

Most companies have target markets which is in part why you get the multi-brand approach so the different brands can target a different segment. It may be that a childminder isn't a close fit to Privileges target... when they relaunched as a response to eSure they were targeted at the "mass-exclusive" with Direct Line being your average person and Churchill as the slightly lower socio-economic (outside of Scotland, the brand didn't go down well there at all) proposition. 

Slightly ironically, for a while after DL bought Churchill it was the CH policies that were the most favourable but I'm sure that's been correct in the decade that's followed. 

We'll ignore the Direct Line Premier which in principle sits above Privilege in the stack 

Veteransaver

DullGreyGuy said:

Veteransaver said:

I'm surprised they don't make more of it to get more business.

Most companies have target markets which is in part why you get the multi-brand approach so the different brands can target a different segment. It may be that a childminder isn't a close fit to Privileges target... when they relaunched as a response to eSure they were targeted at the "mass-exclusive" with Direct Line being your average person and Churchill as the slightly lower socio-economic (outside of Scotland, the brand didn't go down well there at all) proposition. 

Slightly ironically, for a while after DL bought Churchill it was the CH policies that were the most favourable but I'm sure that's been correct in the decade that's followed. 

We'll ignore the Direct Line Premier which in principle sits above Privilege in the stack 

Well ime all insurance cos are much of a muchness, they can try and brand themselves or differentiate themselves a certain way but any claims get outsourced to various different loss adjusters and they are all just as rubbish and take months to settle and try to screw you over even if the event was caused by a third party.
I just always go with the cheapest insurer and choose as large an excess as possible. As soon as you have a claim your renewal gets loaded significantly for the next few years so my personal strategy is just to effectively self insure for the first few grand. I really only want home insurance to cover me if the house burns down or the roof falls in. I wouldn't personally bother making a claim unless the loss was well into the thousands! I probably wouldn't even make a claim for a burglary now, unless they cleared out the whole house. I stopped opting for accidental cover too many years ago as I don't think that is worth it (how much damage can you really do putting a foot through a ceiling?) £500? By the time you've paid the excess and considered the additional premiums for next few years you may as well just cover it yourself.

DullGreyGuy

Veteransaver said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Veteransaver said:

I'm surprised they don't make more of it to get more business.

Most companies have target markets which is in part why you get the multi-brand approach so the different brands can target a different segment. It may be that a childminder isn't a close fit to Privileges target... when they relaunched as a response to eSure they were targeted at the "mass-exclusive" with Direct Line being your average person and Churchill as the slightly lower socio-economic (outside of Scotland, the brand didn't go down well there at all) proposition. 

Slightly ironically, for a while after DL bought Churchill it was the CH policies that were the most favourable but I'm sure that's been correct in the decade that's followed. 

We'll ignore the Direct Line Premier which in principle sits above Privilege in the stack 

Well ime all insurance cos are much of a muchness, they can try and brand themselves or differentiate themselves a certain way but any claims get outsourced to various different loss adjusters and they are all just as rubbish and take months to settle and try to screw you over even if the event was caused by a third party.

There are certainly differences, though price alone isn't always the best way to tell the differences as if you don't match their target some insurers just spike the price to try and dissuade you from buying but that can make some assume its better without reading. 

Even outsourcers offer multiple levels of service to their clients... have to say that my first claim in a decade or so was two weeks ago. Reported it to my insurer online on Saturday, get an email saying its going to an outsourcer on Sunday, phone call Monday morning, money in the bank Monday afternoon. Not really sure that they could improve on it that much unless it was a straight though AI bot like my last travel claim that approved it instantly and payment made overnight.  Its likely, if you are buying the most basic options, then your claim is still in queue with others that reported after you having already been dealt with. 

Veteransaver said:
my personal strategy is just to effectively self insure for the first few grand. I really only want home insurance to cover me if the house burns down or the roof falls in. I wouldn't personally bother making a claim unless the loss was well into the thousands! I probably wouldn't even make a claim for a burglary now, unless they cleared out the whole house. I stopped opting for accidental cover too many years ago as I don't think that is worth it (how much damage can you really do putting a foot through a ceiling?) £500? By the time you've paid the excess and considered the additional premiums for next few years you may as well just cover it yourself.

Using a strict definition, I don't self insure for the first few grand but in the fortunate position that I don't need to have a specially put aside fund for a couple of grand. I too wouldn't claim for a minor loss, hence snatched bag with new phone in it etc was the first claim in an age. 

How important things like AD, Matching Sets etc is really comes down to what you own, how you live and priorities. In one claim a while back the insured had a single carpet that was in every room of their massive flat other than the kitchen and bathrooms, over 150m2 of it. Not a single door bar or other visible break in the whole thing. 

They dropped something on the carpet, the insurers cleaners couldn't get it out and as they had matching set cover the whole thing had to be replace for a bill well over £10,000 and it was by no means the most expensive carpet the company sold.  Now some people would have just put a rug down or they may not have gotten matching set cover in which case just the hall would have been changed and door bars introduced or no AD cover in which case its down to them as they are uninsured. 

Home is a fairly complex product, compared to Motor,  and it's unsurprising that it generates proportionally more complaints because people don't check what they are buying really meets their needs and make some questionable assumptions (eg only need to include the value of the items I care about in the sum insured, that thinks like a dining table and 6 chairs is "1 item" rather than a set etc)