Home insurance renewal time

[Kendhni]

I got my renewal notice through (£150) and decided to have a quick search ... I managed to nearly halve the price (£80 - cheapest I have ever found it). But even if I include some of the extras I normally don't take (e.g. accidental damage) and up my contents, and reduce my excess it still saves me £40 ... plus cashback on my credit card ... and it means I am renewing with the same company that my current insurance is with?

Not going to tell you which comparison site I am using but at Christmas Julie will be getting another meerkat for her collection.

[Frank Manning]

Good for you Ken. Saga have been charging me £500 for home and contents with a flood extra despite the fact that we live on the highest point around here and several miles from the nearest river. We are reviewing them this year, I have just passed the Institute of Advanced Motorists, and if they dont do better than IAMs on my car insurance then we are going to drop them for all insurances.

[HK phooey]

Ken, we've been waiting 2 months for Maia to arrive.

[Ms B]

Ken
Is the insurance cover for contents and building, and does it cover accidental damage for both?

[Kendhni]

Covers both ... Buildings is unlimited ... Contents £75K ...£50 voluntary excess ... Plus accidental damage on both

In the end i did without the meerkat ... I found a site offering £38 cash back ... So in the end i should be paying about £55

[davecttr]

I changed insurers 3 years ago to save money and it was OK for 2 years. This year they banged up the premium by over £100 so I did a quick search and found a equivalent policy with a big insurer for over £100 less plus £50 sign on gift.

It always pays to shop around.

I don't like they way they cynically slam the costs up for existing customers hoping they will just renew. It is a total rip off and should be banned.

[Dark Knight]

i dont believe you can compare your premium to anyone else's
as everyone has a different contents amount and their house is worth more or less
what may appear a good deal for say Ken, would not be enough cover for someone living in London , as the house prices are much higher
similarly with contents, some people may have very specific items to cover and go new for old, so 75K may be nowhere near enough

years ago when we moved to Larne, we had to do shipping insurance on thewhole contents of our house, in case the ship was lost at sea, if you want a real valuation of you contents, try to work out what it would cost to replace every single item in you home
and 75K is no where close, try double or treble that amount of cover for a start

and before the sceptics start...try it and see

[kaymar]

Covers both ... Buildings is unlimited ... Contents £75K ...£50 voluntary excess ... Plus accidental damage on both

In the end i did without the meerkat ... I found a site offering £38 cash back ... So in the end i should be paying about £55

Kendhni, I'll do it for £50, just don't try making a claim.

[Kendhni]

i dont believe you can compare your premium to anyone else's

correct .. postcode and even persons age can make a massive difference to home insurance.

and 75K is no where close, try double or treble that amount of cover for a start

and before the sceptics start...try it and see

I run a realistic spreadsheet for the contents of my house ... excluding Julies jewelry it works out at about £60K (pushed up by my computer equipment) - which is above average for a household in the UK. If you have collectables, art etc. then naturally it will be higher but not for an average household with average items in it.

Having said that we don't really have anything vastly expensive (nothing that needs to be named separately .. which bumps the price up a lot) - others may well have. One of the problems is that a lot of people very much overvalue their property (insurance companies love them, as do I, because it helps to keep my price down) - they forget that that TV that cost them £2000 new can now be replaced like-for-like for under £500 ... or those clothes that cost £500 new are pretty much worn out and ready for the bin ... or all that junk you have put in the roof space and garage is mostly worthless (if you are honest with yourself).

A good source for realistic pricing is eBay .. see what people are paying for items. A friend of my parents used to collect Franklin/Danbury mint plates and had them insured for a fortune ... after he checked eBay he found out they were changing hands at well under £5. So collectables are a bit funny. I have a large box in one of the bedrooms with my stamp collection in it ... I think, for insurance purposes, I guesstimated a few thousand for it, but the bottom line is that I have absolutely no idea what it is worth and, if the house burnt down, I would never replace it nor miss it.

Similar with the boxes of Ainsley, figurines, Waterford/Tyrone crystal, artwork and many other items in my roof space ... I know that some of the items cost people a lot of money and in their day they were probably worth something (may well still be) but to me they are virtually worthless ... although for insurance purposes I have put a reasonable figure on it ... if I had the sense I would rent a skip and throw the entire contents of the roof space in it - why I hoard things that have served their purpose is beyond comprehension.

Similarly with the house itself, a common mistake is to insure it for its market value rather than the rebuilding costs (which is substantially less).

[Dark Knight]

Ken
as I said, it works for you

but not everyone is the same, I am sure you spreadsheet is of use to you

[qbman1]

Ken, we've been waiting 2 months for Maia to arrive.

I've got Maiya - can we do a deal ?

[Kendhni]

It always pays to shop around.

I don't like they way they cynically slam the costs up for existing customers hoping they will just renew. It is a total rip off and should be banned.

I agree totally dave ... the joke is that I cancelled the renewal with my current company and reinsured with them .. the girl on the phone offered me an immediate price match to the quote I had run through the comparison site but I told her that if I did that I wouldn't get a free meerkat (or as I later decided, a significant amount of cashback).

My mother used to automatically renew her insurance until one year I found out ... without doing much work I managed to save her over 50% ... and that was with double the contents insurance (she had been very under insured). The biggest thing doing the damage for her was named items. The following year, when I had time to look at it properly, I got it down even more (in the end it was about 25% of what she had been paying).