Basic expat information and orientation

Basic_Expat_Advice

Immigrating to the UK with my family has been stressful enough, without the additional challenges most consider to be "self-evident". More stressful is the absence of advice, with "advisors" either intent on selling one a policy or product, whilst most others refusing to give any sort of useful advice in fear of legal recourse (despite being willing to sign any disclaimer and having no intention of holding them responsible for helping with even basic information).

A few costly examples include:

- I extended and re-did our bathroom, and constructed a garden office using savings and some credit card. In my previous life, when I had completed the work, I would invite the bank to re-value the property and be able to withdraw any additional equity to pay off the credit card. Much to my dismay, as I had not applied for a home improvement loan, I now painted myself into a corner which is going to cost me a whole lot more in interest than it needed to...

- In my previous life, companies rewarded their clients for loyalty, with new clients almost invariably unable to access the products and benefits I was able to as a long-standing one who had proven myself to be a low risk, etc. I was with my insurance company for over 20 years, with no other insurer even able to offer the level of cover I had when I checked my deal every few years; or likewise, the bank I was with for a similar timeframe. Why is it that businesses would rather take on clients they don't know, who could be high(er) risk than existing clients, etc.?

I could bore you with a long list of things it would have been invaluable to be able to have someone just explain the lie of the land - from bank accounts, mortgages and all the other topics covered by MSE, through to basic stuff like season train tickets and hundreds of other topics "self-evident" to most, but totally new to expats...

Anyone got any suggestions where I could find advice, please?

DullGreyGuy

Learning to live in a new country is always going to be difficult and you'll always make mistakes that those that were born and bred here won't because they've been exposed to how it all works their whole life. 

I am sure if you google you will find forums based on ex-pats from your country of origin on living in the UK and they'll highlight the deltas between how things work back there -v- how they work here. It's probably a good starting point as they'll know where your starting point is in expectations. Likewise you may find local groups depending on where you live that do similar, you just need to be slight careful of the blind leading the blind.

There are forums like this where people will answer most questions within reason, they may go OTT on the detail if you say you aren't from around here but its just they dont have your point of reference to go off of. 

Inevitably there will be differences of opinions on what is the "best" option anyway... we get threads on here from people desperate for advice on how to avoid a smart meter for their utilities and others wanting to know how they can force their provider to install a smart meter. 

As to new customers -v- old customers... in financial services there is very little movement of customers, the majority just stay where they are. As for profit institutes they need to show profitable growth and there is only so much cost you can remove from the business so at some point you need to grow your revenue. Cross selling in FS is painfully poor, working for a large UK insurer about 5% of customers held products in more than one class with them. So if you can't sell more to your existing customers you've got to get more customers. 

eskbanker

Basic_Expat_Advice said:

Anyone got any suggestions where I could find advice, please?

I'm not aware of some sort of comprehensive 'one stop shop' offering detailed guidance on all matters, but chances are that you'd be able to get help on this forum for most such issues - it sounds like you made some assumptions about funding a significant financial commitment for your house, whereas if you'd posted on the housing board here then you'd have been able to pick others' brains about what would and wouldn't work.

Your second point sounds more rhetorical than practical but again, depending on the type of insurance you're referring to, there'd be forum posters able to offer thoughts on the relevant board.