Home Insurance

We pay £36 a month for buildings and unlimited  contents, including accidental damage, home emergency and legal cover, personal possessions outside the home and cover for the youngest at university, with Nationwide. So that’s £432 per year, which I thought was pretty reasonable. 

hungryhalibut posted:

We pay £36 a month for buildings and unlimited  contents, including accidental damage, home emergency and legal cover, personal possessions outside the home and cover for the youngest at university, with Nationwide. So that’s £432 per year, which I thought was pretty reasonable. 

I certainly don't think you're being ripped off hungryhalibut. I use Nationwide too, but for mobile phone and medical which comes as part of the bank account I opened with them at £13 per month for just this purpose. That's all the family covered for a really good price worldwide plus in-credit interest of 5% as an added bonus. Blindin' value IMHO!

Lest anyone think there is a Nationwide account  that costs £13 a month and gives 5% interest, there isn’t. The FlexPlus costs £13 and pays 3% on balances up to £2,500, whereas the FlexDirect is free and pays 5% on balances up to £2,500 for a year, after which the rate drops to 1%. FlexPlus includes the worldwide travel insurance whereas FlexDirect doesn’t. 

Jonners posted:

As an example I got a quote on moneysupermarket for one of my places (a 17th Century stone-built cottage), £250k rebuild, £900k contents, new for old, accidental damage to both, legal and emergency cover, named items (my hi-fi) and a bunch of others with cover away from home (laptops, jewellery, watches, bikes and my guitars and amps). With a £200 voluntary excess the premium was £1600. Dropping the contents cover down to £500,000 reduced the premium to £1100 so it really is worth putting a figure on the value of those contents to avoid paying over the top for insurance you may never need.

But you need to be aware that when they send  round a loss adjuster, who looks around and estimates the value of everything and concludes that it is £900k, you’ll only get 5/9ths of the value of each individual item lost - even if it os a single item, say ND555+2PSs (alright, 3 items). Younhave to decide if it is a risk with which you are comfortable for te sake of whatever the £500 premium in this case - and of course everyone’s appetite for risk os is different.

Innocent Bystander posted:

But you need to be aware that when they send  round a loss adjuster, who looks around and estimates the value of everything and concludes that it is £900k, you’ll only get 5/9ths of the value of each individual item lost - even if it os a single item, say ND555+2PSs (alright, 3 items). Younhave to decide if it is a risk with which you are comfortable for te sake of whatever the £500 premium in this case - and of course everyone’s appetite for risk os is different.

Even "new for old" Innocent Bystander? I'm asking the question hypothetically but would the scenario you've laid out still play out for people with "unlimited" contents and buildings insurance? How could a loss adjuster calculate 5/9ths of the value of something with no ceiling on its value?

Jonners posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

But you need to be aware that when they send  round a loss adjuster, who looks around and estimates the value of everything and concludes that it is £900k, you’ll only get 5/9ths of the value of each individual item lost - even if it os a single item, say ND555+2PSs (alright, 3 items). Younhave to decide if it is a risk with which you are comfortable for te sake of whatever the £500 premium in this case - and of course everyone’s appetite for risk os is different.

Even "new for old" Innocent Bystander? I'm asking the question hypothetically but would the scenario you've laid out still play out for people with "unlimited" contents and buildings insurance? How could a loss adjuster calculate 5/9ths of the value of something with no ceiling on its value?

No problem with unlimited cover - my point was if you chose contents cover of £500, while actually having stuff to the value of £900 (usually new for old, but actually justvin whatever terms tge insurance is)

hungryhalibut posted:

We pay £36 a month for buildings and unlimited  contents, including accidental damage, home emergency and legal cover, personal possessions outside the home and cover for the youngest at university, with Nationwide. So that’s £432 per year, which I thought was pretty reasonable. 

It depends where you live and how that is rated by the insurance industry. My home area used to be rated low crime, but following a spate of burglaries about 3 years ago, unsolved, it is now rated a greater risk than the major UK city in which I lived before moving here, with insurance prices to match despite no other burglaries before or since!

Jonners posted:

Bryce Curdy posted

Exactly, and this is my problem.  We have no children and have a situation where our contents relative to the value of the house is unusually very high which is what makes a policy with unlimited contents insurance so appealing.  The only valuables I have to specify are two watches and my wife’s engagement ring.  The thought of having.to add up the value of all our contents is really unappealing.

If you can find an underwriter offering unlimited contents insurance I imagine you'll pay through the nose and I really don't think it's necessary. In all cases I've seen, when filling out the application forms online with the comparison sites, they will suggest a recommended figure for buildings and contents based on the information provided. If you don't think it's enough, you can enter a manual figure. It doesn't need to be scientific,  just a figure you're confident would cover all your belongings, etc in the event of a total loss. That figure will usually include the cost of rebuild as well. 

 

If you use comparison sites to shop around, pricing on the better deals is not so much related to the level of cover provided, as to how much new business that insurer wishes to bring in. So you can sometimes find competitive deals that offer unlimited contents cover, eliminating the risk of being underinsured, and saving the need to add up the replacement value of every item you possess. 

Update - have switched to Nationwide.  Half the cost saving me nearly £500.  Unlimited contents cover including accidental damage, 3 specified valuables worth around £200000 covered home and away from home, £5000 additional contents cover away from home.  There was a 25% discount as a Nationwide member but this wil apply in future years, and having been a Nationwide customer for nearly 20 years I've always found them pretty good backed up by regular Best Bank awards.  No additional cost for monthly vs annual payment.  John Lewis have fully refunded the unused premium (8 months).  A well spent hour, and thanks to HH for mentioning them.

I’ve just received my N&S house+contents insurance, to find that, very surprisingly, it has gone down by about 10% on last year (which had been a shoking increase of around 20% On the year before). Though now under £800 I will still try some other quotes, and the info on here will help with that.

Bryce Curdy posted:

Update - have switched to Nationwide.  Half the cost saving me nearly £500.  Unlimited contents cover including accidental damage, 3 specified valuables worth around £200000 covered home and away from home, £5000 additional contents cover away from home.  There was a 25% discount as a Nationwide member but this wil apply in future years, and having been a Nationwide customer for nearly 20 years I've always found them pretty good backed up by regular Best Bank awards.  No additional cost for monthly vs annual payment.  John Lewis have fully refunded the unused premium (8 months).  A well spent hour, and thanks to HH for mentioning them.

Result! I’m so pleased you found my tip useful. Don’t forget to pay the £25 for legal cover - I’d have been buggered without it when I was hit by a car. And I’m impressed with £200,000 for three valuables, must be some seriously swanky ring!! 

Typo - £20,000 rather than £200,000 sadly.  A £67,000 ring would indeed be swanky (with a silent S).

Yes, I’d assumed it was a typo. A £67,000 watch would be pretty swanky too. I hope you got that legal cover. 

Last week I did my usual yearly price comparison search to see what insurance options were out there. For a 4 bedroom detached house with a low excess, high value (Naim) items all listed, I was expecting prices to have crept up as usual. They had, with one notable exception.....Hastings would do it for £97.00! Surely there must be a catch? I read and re-read the small print several times, but as far as I could tell, the T&Cs were much the same as everyone else’s. Maybe it was a computer error. 

I shall check Hastings myself later. One question is always do they have a good track record at actually coughing up? Small print may be critical - Finding ways to wriggle out when it matters makes the insurance incredibly expensive!

Innocent Bystander posted:

I shall check Hastings myself later. One question is always do they have a good track record at actually coughing up? Small print may be critical - Finding ways to wriggle out when it matters makes the insurance incredibly expensive!

I can't comment on whether Hastings will cough up or not in the event of a claim but I switched from Hastings last year because of their service levels. I needed to make an alteration to my policy and must have called them at least 6 or 7 times before giving up after failing to speak to anyone. That made me worry about what would happen if I needed to make a claim. 

We use Aviva. Providing we pay to have the contents covered for an appropriate amount they do not stipulate an upper limit on items and do not require them to be listed. Valuables like jewellery, watches etc. do need to be listed. HiFi and AV systems are not valuables and do not need coverage against theft and loss out of the house.

Every year I check to make sure the contents are fully covered and that their policy on high cost items which are not valuables, has not changed.

Now and again I try other on line comparators. I've lost count of the ones I've tried over the years. All the usual suspects. As soon as I tell them I want high contents coverage it gets all complicated. If in doubt, go to a specialist provider and get the boxes insured separately.

I have a question regarding unlimited contents cover - which seems to be becoming more common.

when I switched to M&S a few years ago, they were the first I’d come across that were affordable and offered unlimited cover. It seemed great - no worry about being under-insured and so only getting a proportion of value (even if only a single item involved). Since learning the consequence of under-insuring I have been meticulous about working out the replacement cost of entire contents to within just a few £k - few people bother, but you can get caught out when you make a claim, as most people who make a guess grossly underestimate. But no longer any need to do that. 

However - and here’s the issue: if you have a set sum insured, then in the event of total loss, e.g. a major fire, then the insurance company would simply cough up the total. However, with unlimited it has just occurred to me that they are far more likely to require proof at the time of even a total loss claim - and proof of the clothes, trinkets, furniture gathered over years, kitchen utensils, tools etc etc is far harder than the few expensive things for which you may have retained receipts (assuming the receipts are safe from loss/destruction). Does anyone have experience of claiming under an unlimited contents insurance, and if so how does my feared scenario fit?

Innocent Bystander posted:

I shall check Hastings myself later. One question is always do they have a good track record at actually coughing up? Small print may be critical - Finding ways to wriggle out when it matters makes the insurance incredibly expensive!

Insurance companies don't make profits by paying claims, silly.

Innocent Bystander posted:

I have a question regarding unlimited contents cover - which seems to be becoming more common.

when I switched to M&S a few years ago, they were the first I’d come across that were affordable and offered unlimited cover. It seemed great - no worry about being under-insured and so only getting a proportion of value (even if only a single item involved). Since learning the consequence of under-insuring I have been meticulous about working out the replacement cost of entire contents to within just a few £k - few people bother, but you can get caught out when you make a claim, as most people who make a guess grossly underestimate. But no longer any need to do that. 

However - and here’s the issue: if you have a set sum insured, then in the event of total loss, e.g. a major fire, then the insurance company would simply cough up the total. However, with unlimited it has just occurred to me that they are far more likely to require proof at the time of even a total loss claim - and proof of the clothes, trinkets, furniture gathered over years, kitchen utensils, tools etc etc is far harder than the few expensive things for which you may have retained receipts (assuming the receipts are safe from loss/destruction). Does anyone have experience of claiming under an unlimited contents insurance, and if so how does my feared scenario fit?

You could say the same even if you had a set sum insured. They could/would just as easily ask to see proof of purchase.

count.d posted:

 

You could say the same even if you had a set sum insured. They could/would just as easily ask to see proof of purchase.

Indeed - and maybe I’m wrong, but there would seem to be a difference between  a requested fairly high level of cover conpared to the norm expected based on number of bedrooms, but with the insurance premium proportional to the insured amount,, and and no specified limit so no higher premium for what they may see as above average for property type. Just makes me wonder, hence my question as to snyone’s experience.

Further update - I moved into a relatively expensive new build by an award winning builder two years ago.  My main exit door as well as a second exit door have thumb turn locks on the inside, better in the event of fire.  I’ve had to change the barrels as Nationwide insist on a lock that is key operated on both sides.  They don’t insist on 5 point locks but some insurers do and my locks are only 3 point.  So if you’ve not done so slready check carefully your policy wording and locks as I was naively assuming that a new build house would have no issues.

Nationwide have also insisted for valuations for any listed valuables that are more than three years old which is the case for two of mine so that will involve a cost.  Plus we have a couple of other items that are probably below £5,000 in value but we have no receipt (they were inherited) that I’ll need to get valuations for as otherwise they don’t exist as far as Nationwide are concerned. I realise just how much I’ve taken my eye off the ball with this, probably not the only one.

Yes, and the lock may be required to be to a specified BS - which can mean they must be ‘kitemarhed’, and insurance can be invalidated if not. In theory they can get out of the insurance that way even if the said lock(s) were nothing to do with the incident. I would love to see a good independent review of this sort of aspect of insurance companies, which doesn’t seem to get considered.

And valuations are a con - they are supposedly only valid for 2 or maybe 3 years : if you have quite a few items the cost can be significant. Some years ago I chNged insurer for one with a significantly higher cutof for that readon, though the insurance wax more expensive. 

Yes, and the lock may be required to be to a specified BS - which can mean they must be ‘kitemarhed’, and insurance can be invalidated if not. In theory they can get out of the insurance that way even if the said lock(s) were nothing to do with the incident. I would love to see a good independent review of this sort of aspect of insurance companies, which doesn’t seem to get considered.

And valuations are a con - they are supposedly only valid for 2 or maybe 3 years : if you have quite a few items the cost can be significant. Some years ago I chNged insurer for one with a significantly higher cutof for that readon, though the insurance wax more expensive.