Home Buildings & Contents Insurance-advice please

[mlv]

Norwich Union have given me just a few days notice to renew the Buildings and Contents Insurance on my mother's home.

I don't like the numerous exceptions Norwich Union have recently added to their policy document and if they add many more it will become very difficult to find any incident that is covered.

I haven't got time to research other insurance companies as the detail is always in the small print and by the time I have requested, received and studied specimen policy documents, my mother's insurance will have lapsed.

Can anyone recommend a good insurance company for Home Buildings and Contents cover at a reasonable cost? I'm looking for an insurance company that will actually assist my mother should she need to make a claim, rather than one that puts all its effort into finding ways and reasons to avoid paying out. That should limit the field and IMO precludes Prudential Insurance plc.

[Angela]

Buildings

detail is

received and

claim, rather

Prudential

Well, you only ever know how good an insurance company is when you make a claim. I have never made a claim on my insurance but I can tell you I went with Lloyds TSB mainly because it seemed to cover everything I needed at a reasonable price and best of all it was unlimited cover so I don't have to worry that I am under/over insured.

Angela

[S P O N I X]

Frizzell/Liverpool Victoria.

sPoNiX

[David Hearn]

I'm with Nationwide and I'm pleased with them. I realise they'll just be a front for someone else - but we're currently persuing a claim after someone pulled our front wall down. Whilst its been delayed a long time - that's been nothing to do with Nationwide, but rather a sub-sub-contractor their sub-contractor used (lied for 8 weeks that they'd done the estimate etc). Nationwide have been very helpful and I've been impressed with them.

D

[Dave Gibson]

Churchill Insurance. Have used them for years for both car and house insurance. Have only had to claim on car insurance but they were swift and settled very quickly. They even rang me up the repairs to make sure everything was to my satisfaction. Funnily enough I changed to them after using Norwich Union who were ripping me off for house insurance, and one year did not send me a renewal notice so my house insurance nearly lapsed!

or freephone 0800 200 343 for a quote

Dave

[Toby]

Direct Line are in the reasonable bracket, and do a decent 1st year discount. They do seem quite helpful on the phone, but I haven't tested their claims procedure. If everything is standard it will be OK, if you want to add 'all risks' cover on a £5k ring then expect a large hike. They do let you arrange your own repairs or replacements if you wish.

[dmc]

in which case try Tesco - which is Directline really. I got the same cover that directline were offering for my car from Tesco and saved a fair bit.

One restriction with Tesco is that (in terms of car insurance anyway) everything must be standard. If you want to upgrade pretty much anything then they will not cover you.

Never claimed - but I know a couple of people who have and they recommended tesco to me as a result. Dunno what their house insurance is like but I see no reason to suspect it is not as good. I will cetainly be trying them at renewal time.

I think (could be wrong here) that they also put their policy online for you to read the small print...

Darren

[Dan delaMare-Lyon]

They are not the same - they use the same quotation engine - but the underwriters and policies are different.

Cheers Dan.

[Michael Chare]

I use Saga for the building because I can just specify a 3 bed house with a limit of £400K which saves trying to estimate likely rebuild costs.

I insure the contents with Direct Line. They paid up promptly after theft of handbag from locked boot of car.

Michael Chare

[Scott Mills]

That said so is Churchill Insurance nowdays, or will be soon at least

[dmc]

Really? Policy was almost word-for-word identical.

I could have sworn I read that they were one and the same - privilege was another in the same group from what I remember. Maybe I dreamt it (scary thought - I am dreaming of insurance companies!!!)

Anyway, what I said still holds - no complaints from Tesco insurance and recomendations from friends.

Darren

[Huge]

They are for car insurance.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Try NFU mutual, and always with any company make an inventory backed up with pictures of everything in every room.

If you can poiunt out the obvious telly in th ecornert and say 'thats what got nicked' it helps when teh asessor questions your veracity, it also remonds you of what the Persian rig looked like, and you can get accurate asessment of replacement costs.

Insurance fraud is rife: Just make sure you have proof of what might get nicked/go up in flames.

[mlv]

Thanks for all the replies.

First of all, I did Norwich Union an injustice. My mother's policy (with more exclusions and exceptions than you can shake an insurance assessor at) is actually with Lloyds TSB.

Lloyds TSB want £259.90 to renew the combined Buildings (£150K) and Contents (£40K) Policy.

Tesco (Buildings £150K, Contents £23K) want £285.60. Churchill (Buildings £250K, Contents £35K) want £283.29.

On the face it, the Lloyds TSB policy seems to be good value until you consider the multitude of exceptions that seem to disallow almost every incident that could conceivably happen.

I'm still phoning round, guess I could try Norwich :-)

[RichardS]

Out of curiosity, which are the exceptions that you take particular exception to (sorry!)?

It may be a trend that these exceptions are slowly being adopted by all insurers, but also it could be that the reason that Lloyds TSB are the cheapest is precisely because they have all these exceptions. I'm sure that insurance companies would try and issue Insurance against Theft that includes an exception if the goods were removed from your property without your permission if they could get away with it....

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Andy Hall]

These guys are all in the same ballpark. They spend a lot of time checking each other's prices.

They employ actuaries to look at the statistics and work out risk - these are often ex-accountants who found accountancy too exciting for them.

Ever heard of re-insurance?

This is where the companies pass on policies, groups of policies or parts of policies to other companies. The bookies call this "laying off bets".

.andy

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[N. Thornton]

good point. postcode marking it also increases chances of return.

Good claim service with Axa.

Regards, NT

[Nick Pitfield]

"mlv" wrote in news:bs6ciu$2rn$ [e-mail]:

Try RIAS (Retirement Insurance and Advisory Service) - we recently renewed with them and they were still half the price of eveybody else. We have not made any claims so cannot comment on their claims process, but I have heard good things about them in that dept.

[Owain]

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote | Insurance fraud is rife: Just make sure you have proof of what | might get nicked/go up in flames.

And keep that information somewhere it wont' go up in flames when the house does ...

Owain

[Andy Hall]

How do they achieve that? Do they restrict who can apply - e.g. must be retired? Some insurers do this on the basis that statistically the customer will be at home more.

.andy

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