I think checking terms and conditions is a given for any insurance regardless of the cost. And don’t forget that brokers are in it for the money not you. You cannot beat taking control yourself and getting what you want at your budget. At the end of the day it’s all about comfort factor and budget. For instance, my main concern is total loss, so rebuild and refurnish. Anything else I feel,I could suck up. Resulting premium? £128 per annum. Up from £85 p/a last year.
My approach has always been to set a high excess so that I’m effectively self-insuring for all but the most expensive losses. If the plumbing leaks or something breaks I’ll fix or replace it myself. I figure that if I make a claim the insurer will recover their costs through increased premiums, possibly several times over, so I don’t see the point unless it’s for a major claim that you can’t deal with yourself.
As a result my premiums are usually under £200 a year, which seems reasonable enough for an old 4 bed detached house with a rebuild cost that’s at least double the market value.
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I was with Swinton but my premium went from £199 to £922. Now with Policy Experts at £530, both quotes with 5k of hifi cover and ebikes. We must all be paying for the climate related claims.
Another vote for Aviva.
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My renewal quote (£720) recently dropped in from M&S (cover is underwritten by Aviva) and it’s gone up 35% over last year’s price, so I’m looking at how to reduce that without compromising cover too much. I’m using their Premier cover for both buildings and contents, with unlimited cover for both, with a valuables limit of 50k (single item 15k). Valuables are clearly defined and don’t include music collections or audio gear.
Interestingly, I got an initial online quote of £480 direct from Aviva. However when I added in the extras I already have with M&S, the quote increased to £660, and it still wasn’t quite as ‘bells and whistles’ as my current cover. Hmm …
It would be interesting too hear from people who have had to make a substantial claim on their house or contents policy. Many years ago I claimed for subsidence with Axa and the process was pretty awful. The “claims adjuster” they appointed tried to reduce the claim at every point and we only had a reasonable result after a lot of argument and taking advice from our own claims adjuster. More recently I had a water leak claim with Covea and the process was very good and very fair. Which is why I tend to go for firms that have reviews abut the claims process being a fair experience.
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Interestingly I’ve found that voluntary excess hasn’t saved a huge amount on premiums, so have opted for relatively low.
About 15 years ago I was burgled and a fair bit of Hi-Fi was taken, they came for my car and grabbed everything of value on the ground floor mainly.
I had an unbeknown to me narrow definition of valuables with the limits and I was paid out new for old in full on all my Hifi f=as it was nit under the ‘limited’ valuables category (paintings,jewllery, watches). At the time I had just picked up a Naim Naim for the Kitchen and it was taken from the coffee room table my e-bay receipt of a few weeks before and. a few hundred pounds delivered a cheque for a new Nait at the time, small but appreciated compensation. As a good new for old policy means just that.
Ever since I have made absolutely sure that I am covered and send an excel sheets with all the expensive items listed, most ‘cheap’ providers have valuable limits and now anything of any value that’s moveable is in this small limited category. I pay lot of insurance but I’d rather do that than have another burglary and realise I had all my kit woefully underinsured. It can happen
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That is what I have understood is the theoretical basis of insurance, losses are all paid for by sharing the cost amongst everyone, all cooperatively supporting each other - but of course in reality the insurance companies take their not insubstantial cut.
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By the way my house and contents insurance is £370 a month, but most is darn buildings for a listed building. Every year I go through the same process. All the brokers say wow we can definitely beat that quote then say oh we can’t or we simply can’t cover. Ive had the rebuild cost challenged but every time I consider paying for another rebuild report they tell me it won’t be less… So I go with RPI… and not make it even worse !
But are you sure that is enough to rebuild? If not it is a false enonomy. Anything to do with the construction industry shot up phenomenally post COVID, at least where I live, and hasn’t dropped much since.
True, we will renew shortly I’ll see what they say.
Crikey. I’m beginning to think my renewal of £60 per month isn’t bad after all. The ratio of cost is roughly 20% for contents and 80% for buildings so I suspect the average claims ratio must be similar.
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It seems that no one really wants old listed buildings as lead work gets stolen from commercial listed stuff and anytime you deal with a fire you have to wait ages before anything can be fixed with Heritage and the listed people opining etc. All specialists are super expensive and materials crazy prices that meet ‘approval’
My recommendation is to not buy any insurance that you don’t need. If the loss would be unrecoverable (house burning down, or being held liable for death or injury) then it makes sense to insure it. For luxury items and “everyday” losses, the justification is harder. Insurance isn’t a sound financial decision. The odds will always be with the insurance company. You should only pay them to cover risks that you can’t cover yourself.
Insurance is a form of poverty trap, where people without significant capital can’t afford to cover even small losses so they must pay someone to do so. Wealthy people can carry the risk without stress, and so become more wealthy.
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I’d agree with comments here to buy as little insurance as you can afford to. Likely it’ll benefit you. Many large corporations self insure as much as they can rather than swap/lose money with insurance companies and that’s based on extensive experience of the insurance market and its inefficiencies.
I suspect that hifi is not considered valuable as it tends not to be targeted by thieves in the same way that jewellery and watches would be. I just tell the insurance company how much my hifi is worth (so it’s on record) but in terms of their rating it’s just part of general contents (they’re the experts supposedly). My insurance is with Covea, a company with a good reputation. I haven’t had a claim, so I have no direct experience of their service.
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I could not afford to replace my hifi if it was stolen or destroyed, and to me it is an item I would sorely hate to lose, so insurance is viral. Ditto home and numbers of other things. In theory I could just insure the things critical to me, but having bespoke insurance I think would be much more costly than blanket insurance mainly discussed above. E.g., to insure two ebikes with replacement costs of £9k and £3.5k against theft away from home including abroad inEurope was over £300 from a specialist insurer but added only something like £100-150 on household insurance. (Bikes are high risk items.) And if you insure home contents with general home policy but choose not to cover everything you need to specify to the insurer at time of taking it out exactly whay you’re excluding, or in event of a claim be assessed as under-insured so receive smallee payiut on anything lost.
The difference between only insuring house absolute essentials and having dull cover for everything is only a few £hundred a year, and I as I see it I am only worse iff if I am lucky enough to have no significant claim over a lifetime - but the chances if being that lucky are small.
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Yes, I understand that bespoke policies are more difficult and maybe not worth it. An approach to lower the degree to which we pay others to take risk is to seek out policies with high deductibles. Admittedly, when we did that, the reduction in premiums for high-deductibles was modest, to say the least.
Interesting comment about bikes being “high-risk”. Yep, but the insurance company presumably knows that, and the premiums reflect that. Bundling it into home insurance seems to make sense from a cost perspective if you don’t want to carry the risk yourself.
You’re working the odds out in your last paragraph, and you may well be right, but would we not expect the insurance company to also understand the odds? I mean, that’s the business they’re in. An insurance company that pays out more than it takes in won’t stay in business very long.
My own experience is that I’ve been lucky enough, or perhaps careful enough, to have never made a significant claim on insurance in spite of paying tens of thousands of dollars in premiums over the past 45 years. What I’ve bought for those premiums amounts to peace-of-mind, perhaps. And that may be enough.
Freudian? 
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Yes, insurance is vital, but the question is, do you understand your risk better than an insurance company? By the time they calculate premiums based on expected losses, admin costs and profit margin, could you do better taking the risk yourself. Often there are basic levels of cover that are considerably cheaper than the all risks and accidental damage options, which in conjunction with higher excess levels can reduce premium considerably.
Insurers assessment of risk is pretty basic in a lot of cases and your own security and situation may mean that you’re overpaying for a particular risk or subsidising someone else who has a much higher risk profile. Just something to consider, there are a lot of insurance options.