Home insurance quotes for this year seem to have gone crazy!

Annemos

RSA is in the process of completely pulling out of providing domestic home Insurance. 

I suspect it will not be very long before Nationwide also stops offering it?

But note that the usual advice, once you have had a Subsidence Claim, is to stay with the same Insurer who handled the Subsidence Claim. 

James_Blonde

This thread is depressing me.  Our renewal was £1600 - up from £1000 last year (with HomeProtect).  £500K house, £100K contents.  2 contents claims over the last 3 years totally £4.5K.  Was £600 2 years ago.  I feel like we're doing something VERY wrong here looking at the prices others are being quoted..... 

I can get it down to £1350 on their website with arguably better cover (can't get it any lower on comparison sites), or down to £989 with no gadgets, specified items, etc, but that's still an insane amount of money - especially given what other people are getting quoted here!  Do people just massively under insure??

I ran a quote where I added some of my electronics as gadgets rather than specified items - £2200......

Having done a bit of a deep dive, looks like separate musical instrument cover will be worthwhile, camera cover meh and bike cover only worth it if you get a new customer discount.

Annemos

It may have something to do with the 2 claims in the past 5 years. 

I believe that shifts their risk profile calculations. 

I also believe claims like that may start to have less impact after 5 years have passed claim-free. 

But I am not a expert, so it is best to see what others might comment. 

(Also I am not sure if they might somehow claw back what they paid out on the claims through higher premiums?) 

dunstonh

This thread is depressing me.  Our renewal was £1600 - up from £1000 last year (with HomeProtect).  £500K house, £100K contents.  2 contents claims over the last 3 years totally £4.5K.  Was £600 2 years ago.  I feel like we're doing something VERY wrong here looking at the prices others are being quoted..... 

If it makes you feel any better, my renewal has just arrived at £3,221. However, it was only up from £3021 last year, which is a lower increase than many are seeing.   

 In your case, with £100k of contents, you are looking at the premium end of the market.    The standard mainstream (comparison site type) policies tend to max out at £50k.  

Plus, you are also extremely unusual in that you have had not just one claim but two in the last 5 years.  Most people go through life without ever having to claim on their policy.   You have had two in 5 years.  So, you are not only higher risk in terms of coverage but also in respect of claims history.  

Do people just massively under insure??

False economy to do that.  Especially with your track record.  Often the same people moaning about paying their home insurance pay more on tv subscriptions, mobile phone insurance or other things like that.  So, some context on the cost vs benefit needs to be taken into account.

James_Blonde

dunstonh said:

This thread is depressing me.  Our renewal was £1600 - up from £1000 last year (with HomeProtect).  £500K house, £100K contents.  2 contents claims over the last 3 years totally £4.5K.  Was £600 2 years ago.  I feel like we're doing something VERY wrong here looking at the prices others are being quoted..... 

If it makes you feel any better, my renewal has just arrived at £3,221. However, it was only up from £3021 last year, which is a lower increase than many are seeing.   

 In your case, with £100k of contents, you are looking at the premium end of the market.    The standard mainstream (comparison site type) policies tend to max out at £50k.  

Plus, you are also extremely unusual in that you have had not just one claim but two in the last 5 years.  Most people go through life without ever having to claim on their policy.   You have had two in 5 years.  So, you are not only higher risk in terms of coverage but also in respect of claims history.  

Do people just massively under insure??

False economy to do that.  Especially with your track record.  Often the same people moaning about paying their home insurance pay more on tv subscriptions, mobile phone insurance or other things like that.  So, some context on the cost vs benefit needs to be taken into account.

Absolutely agree on the false economy of not, or under insuring!  Thought didn't quite appreciate that claims are that uncommon!  Though to be honest, even knowing that we'd still have claimed so....

But is £100K of contents really that much though???  I have done a contents spreadsheet, and beyond the specified items, I honestly can't believe that our contents list would be that different to anyone else's, which does make me wonder if people just don't understand how much stuff they have or how expensive it would be to replace?  Or whether I'm just trying to insure everything when really I should just let some of it go?? 

DullGreyGuy

James_Blonde said:

This thread is depressing me.  Our renewal was £1600 - up from £1000 last year (with HomeProtect).  £500K house, £100K contents.  2 contents claims over the last 3 years totally £4.5K.  Was £600 2 years ago.  I feel like we're doing something VERY wrong here looking at the prices others are being quoted..... 

I can get it down to £1350 on their website with arguably better cover (can't get it any lower on comparison sites), or down to £989 with no gadgets, specified items, etc, but that's still an insane amount of money - especially given what other people are getting quoted here!  Do people just massively under insure??

I ran a quote where I added some of my electronics as gadgets rather than specified items - £2200......

Having done a bit of a deep dive, looks like separate musical instrument cover will be worthwhile, camera cover meh and bike cover only worth it if you get a new customer discount.

Yes, people massively under insure. 

People look round their home and add up thinks like their TV, watches, jewellery etc. They dont think that they have to add up the cost of every pair of underwear they own, cutlery, crockery, sofa, bed etc etc. Have seen many claims where people have declared their contents in the £10k-£20k range and the loss adjustor has stated it was more like £50k. 

Its very false economy as at that level of discrepancy the insurer can void the policy and avoid any claims as it is at least reckless false declaration. If they are kinder and just apply the averaging clause then as they'd only insured 20% of the value of their property the insurer only has to pay out 20% of the claim. 

With your figures I'd suggest moving up the food chain, budget policies become expensive when you have to declare lots of items. Even dunstonh's preferred NFU add's £2,000 if we quote with them because they have a low single article limit for items outside the home and so we end up having to declare 10 handbags, 5 lenses etc even though in reality no more than a couple of each would ever leave the home at the same time. 

James_Blonde

Yes!!  That!!! 

Who would you suggest?  And should I be looking at... I guess old school brokers?? 

DullGreyGuy

James_Blonde said:

Yes!!  That!!! 

Who would you suggest?  And should I be looking at... I guess old school brokers?? 

I like "bedroom rated" policies which have blanket limits, some of which are "unlimited" (though may have inner limits). But we have a 2 bed flat but a lot of tech etc so price is low due to the smaller home and the unlimited cover is enough for our high value items like projector, AVR, OLED TV, Miele appliances etc. 

I've never come across a Home Broker that I get on with or feel did a good job (unlike my business insurance broker). They seem to want low hanging fruit rather than people that they need to do work for.