Home insurance question?

Stubod

Hi all,

..just had my renewal from Aviva, and they seem to want to charge me an extra 33% this year??...just wondering what other people are finding. I am aware that motor insurance had gone up, (but not so much this year).

..needles to say I will be having a discussion with them on Monday, (and I have been on the compare sites and can get it a lot cheaper with Saga..)

BarelySentientAI

Pretty normal.

And if you are comparing policy prices, make sure you also compare what is covered.

Cheap =/= good value

Hoenir

If insurance companies suffer a high level of claim losses. Then they need to be recouped. 

propertyrental

When you speak to Aviva, have to hand one or more quotations from other insurers for a like-for-like policy.

Either they'll match it (or come close enough to satisfy you), or you cancel your automatic renewal payment (if that's set up) and go elsewhere.

Albermarle

Mine ( with LV=) went up 16% this month, but 45% last year.
Both times I went to Compare the Market, and only a couple of less well known companies a bit cheaper.
My worry with some is that they have ambiguous wording regarding damage from leaks, such as if you left the bath running. LV is clear they will pay out.

youth_leader

There is an excellent forum on Insurance on here, Doc_N helped me enormously during a crisis. 

If you do choose to leave Aviva after looking on the comparison sites and approaching Direct Line etc that don't participate, I also recommend reading the 1* reviews. These are generally from people who have tried and failed to claim.

When I bought this bungalow I hadn't claimed for over twenty five years and I went for the cheapest buildings/contents at the top of the comparison list.   I'd only been here for six months when Storm Arwen blew the 'new' resin flat roof off.  I was very very lucky to have my surveyor helping me with my leaks - the insurers didn't have anyone available to 'make safe' - and my claim.  Claim handler wanted to pay for bitumen and hot torch, my survyeor helped me get the replacement resin. £10K including VAT from a reputable builder/roofer  - they were offering £6K.

Annemos

I had an awful experience with SAGA and sorely regretted using them.

SAGA can sometimes separate out Contents and Building Insurance to get it cheaper, which can be detrimental if you have to claim. (2 insurers, 2 claims handlers, 2 excesses etc etc.) 

Also, my experience of SAGA was that they use a Panel of Insurers and other Agent-Companies, who set the Policies up. A company on the SAGA Panel can suddenly fall off that SAGA Panel and their Policy will not then be offered any more.

This was utterly devastating for me, when it happened in the middle of my Subsidence Claim. (Where you should be being retained by the same Insurer.)  Basically, I was just completely dumped in the middle of the Subsidence claim, at 5 days notice.

And as youth_leader said, if it wasn't for the magnificent help of posters like DullGreyGuy on here, who explained how those complicated set-ups work that SAGA sometimes uses, I would have been completely in the dark about what was going on and why.   As it was, I was WITHOUT Subsidence Insurance for 6 months, before the situation was corrected, after a hard fight and a lot of stress on my part. 

Too late for me, but had I known better before I had to claim, I would always have looked at the actual Top Insurer who is Underwriting a Policy and made sure they are a Member of the Association of British Insurers.

Those ABI Insurer members have certain guidelines in place to help homeowners. 

https://www.abi.org.uk/about-the-abi/abi-members/?p=2&sw=a

DullGreyGuy

youth_leader said:

 I also recommend reading the 1* reviews. These are generally from people who have tried and failed to claim.

If you want to be fair to an insurer however you also need to read the relevant policy book too. The problem is that 98% of people buy on price rather than quality of cover and it shouldn't be a surprise to most that the cheaper policies are often cheaper because they have lower coverage. 

Take Storm as a classic example, Hiscox dont even bother defining it so it falls to the plain English definition. A budget provider who'll rename nameless requires windspeed of over 65mph or precipitation over 35mm per hour or 15" of snow in 24 hours. 

The Royal Meteorology Society state that 47mph wind can cause damage so if you have a case like DRN-4452588 in the Ombudsman where the winds were around 55mph the Hiscox policy would consider that a storm and the budget one won't. Is it really a 1 star rating if a product does exactly what it says it will? I mean a Bugatti Veyron would have beaten my Mk1 Ford Fiesta in pretty much any race on paper and reality, would it be fair to complain that my car was left in the dust by someone in a Veyron next to me?

Stubod

..ta for the feedback. I am not looking to "go cheap", (there are plenty offering me insurance for just over £100...but I have not heard of them before). At one time I was with NFU and paid a higher premium as they promised me a fixed rate for 3 years....but then they put the price up the following year anyway so I left...

DullGreyGuy

Stubod said:

..ta for the feedback. I am not looking to "go cheap", (there are plenty offering me insurance for just over £100...but I have not heard of them before). At one time I was with NFU and paid a higher premium as they promised me a fixed rate for 3 years....but then they put the price up the following year anyway so I left...

Not talking about NFU explicitly but most promotions like this have a series of terms and conditions like making no changes to the policy, claims or if IPT moves. Presumably you queried at the time and accepted the reasoning. 

NFU and wife's handbags dont go well together so never insured with them but they are generally considered a higher end provider and can be more forgiving to typically rural considerations like multiple outbuildings or having a small holding etc.