Hi David, I was with HisCox for several years, and in 2020 we had a rain damage claim. Caused quite a bit of damage, including drenching one of my ProAc speakers. HisCox claim handling, just as the pandemic took hold, was fantastic. No complaints at all. But their premiums has been rising year on year, typically 10-15% with each renewal. In the end I recently switched to Aviva for one quarter of HisCox premium. Hope I made the right decision !……
Paul
It’s all a bit of a lottery. A few years ago I claimed for a pair of Gill’s glasses where a granddaughter had broken them with a too enthusiastic hug. I hadn’t claimed for the two previous breakages of her glasses that year! The bill was £300 and after deduction of the excess the policy paid out £150. The next renewal it went up from £400 a year to £1200 a year and the broker could only find me a policy at about £1000. That wasn’t Hiscox though. It still took some years to recover to the original level.
Did you change your broker- at least a 300% increase - really?! The words rip and off come to mind!!
The broker sent me several different proposals from well known insurance companies. Also I had been with this broker and with the same agent for 30 years. I think we hit a particular issue at the time and it all got a lot cheaper over the next couple of years or so.
Somebody had their pound of flesh thats for sure!!
So do I in switching to Aviva a couple of years ago. They were very relaxed as regards legacy settlement to my place (standard XS applies) and their blanket view of contents cover was also a plus - of course being careful to identify any ‘valuables’ (which in insurance lexicon appears to be things like art and jewellery).
I was expecting a material jump in premium in Y2 (the usual entrapment!) but it was very reasonable.
Above said, I’ve got a claim-free record. The one time I considered claiming (via Direct Line), they wanted to send an adjuster (it was a self-inflicted wound of ~£300 back in the 90’s), such that I told them not to bother - too much hassle for a post XS return.
Trying not to be a smart arse here, but I would never in a million years claimed for £150 payment. I use insurance for the very small chance I’ll lose everything in a fire or burglary only. Or a big loss.
Concur (with hindsight from friends who have made claims) - rendering small-ish claims seems like a pyrrhic victory, and this extends to car insurance too.
We have a £500 excess on our policy, in order to keep the monthly premium down. Last year I damaged my watch when I came off my bike and the quote was £900 to fix it. I called Aviva to claim and asked them how much the premium would increase in future years as a result. Of course, they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say, but strongly advised that I think really carefully before claiming. In the end I didn’t claim, partly because I felt the premium would rise, and partly because you must disclose any claims in the past five years if and when you get quotes from other companies. It’s a bit of a minefield.
My excess is £150 voluntary + £100 compulsory, so if I was in your shoes, £650 claim is on the limit for me making a claim. In your case, £400 wouldn’t be enough for me to claim. Yes it is tricky knowing when to make a claim, but as I mentioned, I use home insurance as a back-up in case I lose everything or a lot.
I left Aviva about 18 months ago, but don’t they have some sort of No Claim Bonus and protection
I’m insured with Nationwide and your comments about unlimited contents (but based on Rooms/ type of house) are spot on -for their underwriters
Beware of discussing losses with an insurer. If you read the small print in some policies they quote based not only on previous claims, but also on previous losses regardless of whether or not you made a claim. So in some circumstances it’s better that they know nothing.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The Aviva person did say that it would be recorded but marked as not claimed. Hopefully falling off my bike won’t count against me too much.
I agree with you. It was the third time my wife had broken them in a year and I hadn’t claimed the first two, but she was adamant that I should claim the third and I gave in.
The insurance company claims line settled the claim over the phone without wanting to see a receipt. At renewal time I mentioned it to the broker as we were discussing the hugely increased premium and she said that I should call her first next time because she would have advised against claiming anything at all.
That does like an excuse for them to say you are accident-prone, and therefore they will rise your premiums next year due to higher risk
Reading the small print a few years ago on a motor policy I learnt that protected no claims discount means just that - protection of tge discount, not protection against a loading on the premium. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the increase in premium of a protected NCD policy is bigger than that on a policy without protected no claims…
I think insurance is a real rip-off, as highlighted by some of the experiences/reactions above. don’t insure at your peril, but in reality it is there primarily for the big things. In other words you have no protection for minor things … which are the most common losses and thefts.
Which is exactly why I only look at policies that offer ‘unlimited’ 
Insurance companies are like your mum - they have ways of finding out what you’re hiding !!
My home insurance renewal invitation from John Lewis arrived last week, and since the premium hadn’t increased greatly, I was on the point of renewing when I read the info from @roger mentioning their change of underwriters, and the introduction of a £10,000 single item limit on contents.
Sure enough, buried on page 485, ( 
) was the confirmation of this, (sneaky), so bye bye, John Lewis.
After several non-productive hours trawling the comparison websites, what fun, I’ve plumped for Aviva, who seem to offer what I need, in terms of Naim black box values, so, game over, coffee time!
I am also in the process of sorting out our insurance renewal. We are currently with Nationwide, but I have been getting other quotes and got a decent one from quotemehappy (seem to be owned by Aviva) but so far have been unable to get a satisfactory response from them about cover for my Hifi gear. Did you get a written assurance from Aviva for your gear?