Topic: building and contents insurance

[Borlotti]

Am with saga, new price for next year £487 thought they  were cheap for oap. We dont live in a mansion, any suggestions please. No claims for 5 yrs. Am i just
mean or are they taking the p ss. Still not good with caps on tablet, after got keyboard use touch screen all those years learning to touch type.at lest i found the pound sign hurray.

[ACE]

It is all down to the area you live in. different prices for different areas. I just go to the old meercat site and get a new quote every year. Could go to any of the other compare sites but SWMBO collects those silly toys. I got saga this year for a semi with contents from Saga but at only a third of what you are paying. But I expect we  live in a nicer area with low crime. I alsp expect your house prices are 3 times higher than here.

[Digeroo]

Have you tried Sainsburys

[galina]

Am with saga, new price for next year £487 thought they  were cheap for oap. We dont live in a mansion, any suggestions please. No claims for 5 yrs. Am i just
mean or are they taking the p ss. Still not good with caps on tablet, after got keyboard use touch screen all those years learning to touch type.at lest i found the pound sign hurray.

Saga is competitive online, but the renewal quotes by post and by telephone are a joke.  MIL (who still drives in her 80s, no claims for decades) halved her renewal by comparison website.  She got Saga renewal, went on phone to tell them it was too much, they told her that nobody else would insure her at her age.  So we introduced her to money comparison websites.  Not only is her premium halved, but it even includes get you home and homestart from AA.

[kGarden]

I use a broker.  So many exclusions and wriggle-clauses in the exceptions that I prefer to rely on someone who knows his way around the insurance companies to make sure that when I claim I get paid rather than fobbed off.

Mate of mine told me recently that only by chance had he carefully read the small print on his renewal  (i.e. not a new) policy and found that they had added, since previous year, that trees falling on the building were excluded.  Other than the small print there was nothing drawing that to his attention ...

[Paulines7]

What you pay not only depends where you live but also what contents cover you have.

We pay less that £150 with Liverpool Victoria for our large detached house on the edge of Salisbury Plain.  We do not have our contents insured for accidental cover and that keeps the premium low.  We also have our car insurance with them too and get a discount for having two policies.

I have had quotes from SAGA in the past and they have always been more expensive.  I have also used Direct Line and they were competitive but LV beat their quote.   

[Borlotti]

Obviously want a good policy so maybe go through a broker.  When I rang Saga he offered me £40 off, but he didn't seem surprised when I said I would go on the internet.  Cheapest is £97 on internet, but I don't understand the big differences in payment.   OH's mother's house was underpinned and he wants cover for that, the house is OK now, and we don't have any valuables apart from the cat (ha, ha).  Have got until April to shop around, Sainsbury's should be OK, unless they go broke because of Lidel, (spelling) but who knows.  Expect if I change insurance the whole house will fall down.

[Jubillee]

I would not advise using Sainsbury's insurance for anything.  We had pet insurance with them and had to claim each month for a chronically ill pet.  They switched their underwriters and we were waiting months for reimbursement, one claim had to be reassessed three times before they got it right.

Our buildings and contents are currently with Marks and Sparks and previously with John Lewis, they are both good.

If you tell one of them what the other quoted they will often reduce it to get the business.

[Paulines7]

If you use a broker then it is likely to be much more expensive as they will need their cut!  They have to get money to run their office, pay their staff, advertising costs etc. so it stands to reason any price will be inflated to include their expenses.

Who was the quote of £97 with on the Internet?   There is a big difference in price compared to your SAGA quote, but I can remember getting a quote from SAGA several years ago and it was about £500.  I think they rely on the fact that people will just pay it and not query the cost.  A lot of people think they are getting a special deal because it specialises in "Over 50's".

[galina]

  There is a big difference in price compared to your SAGA quote, but I can remember getting a quote from SAGA several years ago and it was about £500.  I think they rely on the fact that people will just pay it and not query the cost.  A lot of people think they are getting a special deal because it specialises in "Over 50's".

This was exactly what annoyed us.  By post and over the phone Saga was far more expensive than what we later saw on the comparison website.  Guess which way of communicating older folks are more familiar with and use in preference?

[kGarden]

If you use a broker then it is likely to be much more expensive as they will need their cut!  They have to get money to run their office, pay their staff, advertising costs etc. so it stands to reason any price will be inflated to include their expenses.

Not the case with me :)  My broker is on commission. He charges me a fee to arrange the insurance, and credits my account with any commission.  I don't know if it works out evens - probably depends on how much I prevaricate over what I want and thus how much time he spends! - but mostly it is renewal, on which he spends next to no time so I just get the credit.  But ... some years he phones me up and says "I'm not happy that the existing insurer has changed to do XXX" or "We've been finding that company YYY is better for ZZZ reasons" and I get the benefit of his experience.

I used to use the local Co-op Rep for car insurance. He was brilliant, nothing was too much trouble, could phone him at any time and he'd sort out anything (well ... that was his job I suppose!). Co-op got rid of all their agents, centralised it all (management decided to chase the Direct Line type sales approach I suppose), it was a complete disaster, couldn't get anything sorted out right-first-time, spent hours repeatedly on the phone to their call centre (Mrs K was told, wrongly, that she was, and had been, uninsured at one point ...) ... so they lost my business.

I value my time far too much to waste time on incompetent providers / poor service.