"home insurance" thread in "General Mayhem"
that time again.. Tesco had the best last year. Renewal this time for average home, in semi rural location is fecking £384 Tweat me woughly, ...

that time again..

Tesco had the best last year.

Renewal this time for average home, in semi rural location is

fecking £384

Tweat me woughly, more, harder.

Who came out best in your annual research this year?

Ta. Boring I know, but an issue that affects most of us.

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BOB Crufts 2008 & Loose Shoes
www.bayingbasset.com

No idea.... Abbey said "do you want house insurance" i said yes..

No idea what it costs me at all.

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950 SMR, for men who know the difference

Aren't you best off just going to the comparison sites like confused and moneysupermarket?

Sounds like you are a salesman's dream mate. You never seem to know what anything should cost

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Become a shareholder with Kenny Gilbertson #32 British Superbike Cup - click below

possibly... just that if it's less than i care about £50per month... i don't much give a toss if i can save 48p by going with someone else.

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950 SMR, for men who know the difference

i use first direct

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www.technomoto.co.uk

possibly, but last time the GF used one of them for the car it took ages & we had phonecalls for the next month. Maybe there's a box she didn't tick or something.

I do like a personal recc though!

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BOB Crufts 2008 & Loose Shoes
www.bayingbasset.com

The AA offered me the cheapest when doing quotes online.... note to self, must get round to getting a policy

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Ebay Fraudster

Mine is with the prudential, not the cheapest but i know exactly what i am covered for and that they will settle claims quickly

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You should at least make sure you're aware what you're buying.

The amount of people who I sold to back when I did insurance sales, who thought they were adequately covered and paid handsomely for it, when clearly they weren't. Used to get people with a 4 bed detached stone-built house in Dorset insuring the buildings for £100k.
Wose still was people doing their contents for £20k when they had 4 kids. When I quoted £40-50k cover they'd be all arsey, so I'd suggest they tot up how much it would cost to replace their electrical goods, furniture, 50% of their clothes, books, dvds, ornaments etc and to give me a call back if they felt under-insured. That's before we even got to discussing whether they had accidental damage cover or not.
I was typically earning more for part-time telesales doing that than a senior teacher got full time. As soon as people realised what shit stuff they'd been paying for, they'd fall over themselves to buy decent cover.

These days just 7 years on, even 40-50k would likely be inadequate for many people (though the unlimited buildings cover still stands up to the test of course).


Shame they got taken over by Churchill then Direct Line, and started selling samey shit - and a shame they cut the 15 top earners with redundancy to squeeze the books for churchill. Then again, they hiked the premiums so much to pare the renewal book back that it became nearly unsaleable anyway. Those left largely quit within 3 months.

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im in ur monitrz, lickin ur screenz.

Direct Line group mate.

Used to sell their old HA policies, they were the dog's bollocks.
If you find any of the companies underwritten by Royal Bank of Scotland group to be cheaper, and the policy is roughly equivalent, go with them. The sales people are the same (literally) and the claims and servicing teams are the same. They simply get a tone in the ear, followed by the company name they're representing, and switch scripts and click on the relevant drop-down menu to field your call.

The policies do differ depending on which part of the market they're after but sales and service are the same.

I once had to fake a slightly different accent working for them when the same customer came through for vauxhall car insurance then tesco car insurance, back-to-back.

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im in ur monitrz, lickin ur screenz.

The bit that people miss on buildings cover is that, if you have a buildings claim (fire or flood, say), the first thing the loss adjusters will do is assess whether or not you were under-insured and adjust the payout accordingly. So you could easily be quite seriously out of pocket

The best way of "insuring" yourself against this, unless you have unlimited buildings, is to get a rebuild valuation every few years off a pukka surveyor. If you've got that in writing the LAs won't be able to start arguing that you're under-insured

Precisely.

People forget the cost of a full rebuild means demolition, clearance, surveying, architect fees, planning, materials, labour etc, and quite often an existing house older than 30 years has to be done 'architecturally sensitive' to the surrounding buildings which costs more than expected.

The comment I'd often have to overcome was "but my house is only worth £140k", to which I'd have to explain market values are somewhat different to rebuild costs, explain the above, then point out that if they had unlimited cover then there's nothing to worry about, and quite often for the £3 to £5 extra we cost at the time they were just happy to take it.

Not even scare sales, just peace-of-mind sales. Easy as pie

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im in ur monitrz, lickin ur screenz.

changed house insurance companies yesterday actually. current insurer who i've been with for a few years wanted £388, i looked at U switch and phoned around a little and got better cover for £267, could have got it cheaper, but not with a 'big name' [more than] and same or better level of cover.
only the same as bike insurance renewal time really.

Direct Line-same level of cover. Answered the phone in reasonable time as well.

£214.

Thanks everyone.

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BOB Crufts 2008 & Loose Shoes
www.bayingbasset.com