Home Insurance- How do you choose ?

MyRealNameToo

davidbrooks55 said:

It's reassuring to know that many companies offer discounts for bundling policies or installing security systems. Ultimately, it's about balancing cost with peace of mind.

Security is a double edged sword though... a former client would give a 5% discount if you had a monitored alarm however they also added an endorsement to the policy wording saying that theft claims whilst the property is vacant are only valid if the alarm is set. 

So pop out to the corner shop 5 minutes away, forget/dont bother to set the alarm, and be unlucky and have someone do a smash and grab and your £5,000 claim will be declined. Had you not declared the alarm you'd have paid an extra £10 premium but your claim would have been paid out. 

luci

I also look for the best value policy from a known name. I read / search the policy wording to ensure it includes the specific criteria I have. I look for a policy with Trace and Access, that covers underground pipes, freezing of pipes and has decent cover when the property is empty.

During previous research, I found one known name provider that only provided cover when the property was empty, if the house had been checked every 5 days. Another had restrictions if the property was empty between October and March.

I don’t usually bother with accidental damage for either buildings or contents. However, we were getting work done this year that involved running cables in the attic, which is partially floored. That meant they needed to balance on the joists for some of the work. That make me a bit twitchy, so I called and added accidental damage to buildings. The additional premium was only a few pounds.

Archergirl

luci said:

Jaybee_16 said:

For the past few years I've been with LV. Before that Direct Line, AXA and others. Are they any good? I've no idea as I've been fortunate enough to have never claimed on the policies. (Hopefully not tempting fate)

A couple of years ago during a big cold spell my next door neighbour had three ceilings down due to burst pipes. They are insured with Aviva who were prompt and excellent. Problem is when I looked at renewal their quote was over twice the price of others.

I was with LV= for 3 years until this year when their renewal premium jumped by a massive percentage. I did have a major travel insurance claim with LV this year for about £50,000 and couldn't fault them. They did take a few days to take over the claim after they'd made routine checks to ensure my condition was covered.

Wow, that must have been the holiday of a lifetime, sorry you couldn't go, hope you will soon be well enough to rebook.

luci

Archergirl said:

luci said:

Jaybee_16 said:

For the past few years I've been with LV. Before that Direct Line, AXA and others. Are they any good? I've no idea as I've been fortunate enough to have never claimed on the policies. (Hopefully not tempting fate)

A couple of years ago during a big cold spell my next door neighbour had three ceilings down due to burst pipes. They are insured with Aviva who were prompt and excellent. Problem is when I looked at renewal their quote was over twice the price of others.

I was with LV= for 3 years until this year when their renewal premium jumped by a massive percentage. I did have a major travel insurance claim with LV this year for about £50,000 and couldn't fault them. They did take a few days to take over the claim after they'd made routine checks to ensure my condition was covered.

Wow, that must have been the holiday of a lifetime, sorry you couldn't go, hope you will soon be well enough to rebook.

It wasn't a cancellation claim, I actually went on the holiday. It was a medical claim after I contracted pneumonia and was in respiratory failure in Tenerife in January. I was hospitalised for 2 weeks and needed a medical escort and oxygen on the flight home

Archergirl

luci said:

Archergirl said:

luci said:

Jaybee_16 said:

For the past few years I've been with LV. Before that Direct Line, AXA and others. Are they any good? I've no idea as I've been fortunate enough to have never claimed on the policies. (Hopefully not tempting fate)

A couple of years ago during a big cold spell my next door neighbour had three ceilings down due to burst pipes. They are insured with Aviva who were prompt and excellent. Problem is when I looked at renewal their quote was over twice the price of others.

I was with LV= for 3 years until this year when their renewal premium jumped by a massive percentage. I did have a major travel insurance claim with LV this year for about £50,000 and couldn't fault them. They did take a few days to take over the claim after they'd made routine checks to ensure my condition was covered.

Wow, that must have been the holiday of a lifetime, sorry you couldn't go, hope you will soon be well enough to rebook.

It wasn't a cancellation claim, I actually went on the holiday. It was a medical claim after I contracted pneumonia in Tenerife in January. I was hospitalised for 2 weeks and needed a medical escort and oxygen on the flight home

Oh my, just shows the importance of insurance, glad you got looked after and are home.

MyRealNameToo

Archergirl said:

luci said:

Jaybee_16 said:

For the past few years I've been with LV. Before that Direct Line, AXA and others. Are they any good? I've no idea as I've been fortunate enough to have never claimed on the policies. (Hopefully not tempting fate)

A couple of years ago during a big cold spell my next door neighbour had three ceilings down due to burst pipes. They are insured with Aviva who were prompt and excellent. Problem is when I looked at renewal their quote was over twice the price of others.

I was with LV= for 3 years until this year when their renewal premium jumped by a massive percentage. I did have a major travel insurance claim with LV this year for about £50,000 and couldn't fault them. They did take a few days to take over the claim after they'd made routine checks to ensure my condition was covered.

Wow, that must have been the holiday of a lifetime, sorry you couldn't go, hope you will soon be well enough to rebook.

High value travel claims are almost always medical, a decent travel policy will have a £10k cancellation cover but a £5m medical cover.  Costs vary significantly based on where you are going, hence insurance for N.America and the Caribbean is so high... the later being because tourists are often airlifted to the US for major illness or injury. 

The one travel claim for over £1m I saw was a chap that had a stroke on a cruise ship, was airlifted to a Caribbean island, then again to the US and then moved again to a more specialist US hospital. Unfortunately he didnt survive else the bill would have been substantially higher. 

luci said:

I also look for the best value policy from a known name.

There are two additional considerations with this...

1) Large firms like Aviva, Axa etc do a wide spread of policies, you are probably avoiding the absolute bottom of the barrel by choosing a firm like this but they do sell cut down budget policies as well as full fat policies with all the bells and whistles. You can't assume it's a great policy just because of who the insurer is. 

2) Affinity deals make things more complex. At the aforementioned travel insurer they did a lot of white labelling, 99% of clients were on the same terms but they could add non-term based extras for an additional premium, like a prioritised telephone number for their customers or more grace given on the terms. The affinity partner also set the price they wanted to sell at. A housed name that known for being "value" went for every option and sold it at cost, ie for them it'd be loss making assuming they did any advertising for it. Another household name who holds itself up as a moral firm added none of the extras and was the single most expensive policy the firm sold. 

luci

MyRealNameToo said:

Archergirl said:

luci said:

Jaybee_16 said:

For the past few years I've been with LV. Before that Direct Line, AXA and others. Are they any good? I've no idea as I've been fortunate enough to have never claimed on the policies. (Hopefully not tempting fate)

A couple of years ago during a big cold spell my next door neighbour had three ceilings down due to burst pipes. They are insured with Aviva who were prompt and excellent. Problem is when I looked at renewal their quote was over twice the price of others.

I was with LV= for 3 years until this year when their renewal premium jumped by a massive percentage. I did have a major travel insurance claim with LV this year for about £50,000 and couldn't fault them. They did take a few days to take over the claim after they'd made routine checks to ensure my condition was covered.

Wow, that must have been the holiday of a lifetime, sorry you couldn't go, hope you will soon be well enough to rebook.

High value travel claims are almost always medical, a decent travel policy will have a £10k cancellation cover but a £5m medical cover.  Costs vary significantly based on where you are going, hence insurance for N.America and the Caribbean is so high... the later being because tourists are often airlifted to the US for major illness or injury. 

The one travel claim for over £1m I saw was a chap that had a stroke on a cruise ship, was airlifted to a Caribbean island, then again to the US and then moved again to a more specialist US hospital. Unfortunately he didnt survive else the bill would have been substantially higher. 

luci said:

I also look for the best value policy from a known name.

There are two additional considerations with this...

1) Large firms like Aviva, Axa etc do a wide spread of policies, you are probably avoiding the absolute bottom of the barrel by choosing a firm like this but they do sell cut down budget policies as well as full fat policies with all the bells and whistles. You can't assume it's a great policy just because of who the insurer is. 

2) Affinity deals make things more complex. At the aforementioned travel insurer they did a lot of white labelling, 99% of clients were on the same terms but they could add non-term based extras for an additional premium, like a prioritised telephone number for their customers or more grace given on the terms. The affinity partner also set the price they wanted to sell at. A housed name that known for being "value" went for every option and sold it at cost, ie for them it'd be loss making assuming they did any advertising for it. Another household name who holds itself up as a moral firm added none of the extras and was the single most expensive policy the firm sold. 

1) Yes, I’m aware that there are cut down budget versions of the same type of policy with the same provider, even with the known names. It’s the bottom of the barrel companies that I dismiss after carrying out my normal checks.

2) I always read the policy wording for the sections that are relevant to me and the limits for medical and cancellation. When we had elderly parents, I found under close relatives on whom the travel depends, that some would not cover any cancellation if they had been on any medication in the previous 3 or 6 months. I found that unacceptable and dismissed them, as there are very few older people not on some sort of medication.

Getting travel insurance has become a major problem for me. Almost all the providers I tried recently declined to quote due to my medical conditions. I spent days researching and at one point, I didn’t think I was going to get cover at all. Even the specialist medical providers recommended by BIBA were declining to quote.

I tried a specialist medical comparison site and that returned quotes ranging from £2500 to £12600. That was for a single trip transatlantic cruise ending in the Dom Rep.

I eventually found two provider that returned a quote, AllClear and Insure and Go. I chose AllClear, as they say the cover almost all ages and conditions, and their cover and limits were good. As Insure and Go are not a specialist medical provider, and also do standard travel insurance, I didn’t want the complication that may present. My policy was expensive, but not extortionate, so I opted for that one. I can only get cover for Europe rather than Worldwide, but at least it’s an annual policy including cruises and Spain and its islands.

MyRealNameToo

AllClear and Insure&Go are both trading styles of the same company and I believe staff work across the two brands in the same way as Direct Line, Churchill, Privilege etc are all just trading styles of UK Insurance these days. 

Many insurers operate under multiple brands, back in my call centre days the headset just says which brand's telephone number they have rung and you use that in the salutation. From our perspective everything was in one system that was unbranded but it knows which brand the customer is with so if you sent a letter it would choose the right header stock to print it out on and wasnt something I had to deal with (other than the one time someone loaded the wrong paper to the wrong tray). 

Most insurers will exclude any pre-existing conditions of non-travelling relatives. The more generous may rely on the doctors opinion on if it was foreseeable that the relatives condition would deteriorate within the timescales involved, AllClear have wording along these lines at present. 

luci

MyRealNameToo said:

AllClear and Insure&Go are both trading styles of the same company and I believe staff work across the two brands in the same way as Direct Line, Churchill, Privilege etc are all just trading styles of UK Insurance these days. 

Many insurers operate under multiple brands, back in my call centre days the headset just says which brand's telephone number they have rung and you use that in the salutation. From our perspective everything was in one system that was unbranded but it knows which brand the customer is with so if you sent a letter it would choose the right header stock to print it out on and wasnt something I had to deal with (other than the one time someone loaded the wrong paper to the wrong tray). 

Most insurers will exclude any pre-existing conditions of non-travelling relatives. The more generous may rely on the doctors opinion on if it was foreseeable that the relatives condition would deteriorate within the timescales involved, AllClear have wording along these lines at present. 

Interesting to know AC and I&G are under the umbrella of the same company. Most companies use the same medical screening company with identical questions. There is another screening company, but very few insurers use them.

I have compared policies from Direct Line and Churchill for car insurance and there were subtle differences between them.

I have seen policies that will cover close relatives if a doctor will confirm that there was no known reason that their condition would deteriorate.

MyRealNameToo

luci said:

MyRealNameToo said:

AllClear and Insure&Go are both trading styles of the same company and I believe staff work across the two brands in the same way as Direct Line, Churchill, Privilege etc are all just trading styles of UK Insurance these days. 

Many insurers operate under multiple brands, back in my call centre days the headset just says which brand's telephone number they have rung and you use that in the salutation. From our perspective everything was in one system that was unbranded but it knows which brand the customer is with so if you sent a letter it would choose the right header stock to print it out on and wasnt something I had to deal with (other than the one time someone loaded the wrong paper to the wrong tray). 

Most insurers will exclude any pre-existing conditions of non-travelling relatives. The more generous may rely on the doctors opinion on if it was foreseeable that the relatives condition would deteriorate within the timescales involved, AllClear have wording along these lines at present. 

Interesting to know AC and I&G are under the umbrella of the same company. Most companies use the same medical screening company with identical questions. There is another screening company, but very few insurers use them.

I have compared policies from Direct Line and Churchill for car insurance and there were subtle differences between them.

I have seen policies that will cover close relatives if a doctor will confirm that there was no known reason that their condition would deteriorate.

Haven't looked at DL -v- CH in years but there is history given CH was an acquisition. The brands were pitched at different segments, Privilege was mass exclusive, DL broad mass market and CH at slightly lower end mass market and void in Scotland. The problem they had shortly after the acquisition was that Priv had the worst policy terms and CH the best whereas to match the brand position that needed change. 

Generally you won't have identical terms, you will vary them slightly to align them to your brand proposition but it can also be market segmentation even within a brand. Aviva write both fairly basic policies to be distributed by brokers but also do high net worth policies. 

Theres always challenges though, arguably you need the same people looking at a single product so you can consider things in the round and consider the consequence if you move pricing on one brand what it means for the other brands but then how do you keep the brand aligned if people sit on a product axis rather than brand.