for plumbing, electrickery, heating, etc.

Been with BG for years as we inherited an old boiler that was on a contract, and although it’s cost me more than i’ve had out of it (insurance, who’d have thought it!) for peace of mind it’s been OK. They’ve also done my electricity and plumbing cover as part of their Homecare plan

But after a service and repair too far earlier this year, i bit the bullet and replaced it with a new fancy boiler which has a 7 year warranty, and as long as the engineer (who’s a riding mate too) does the service he’ll extend that from parts to labour as well – so while I’ll be paying 1x£70 a year service which came as part of the BG Homecare agreement, that’s still way cheaper than what I think I’m paying for HC. If indeed i need anything doing, on a new boiler and updated system.

Which leaves the plumbing and electricity, but BG don’t seem to offer that alone, so now looking at alternatives via comparison sites, and a/ everything is way cheaper than my BG plan which was close of £600 pa!! and b/ bewildering to compare with one provider having 52 pages of T&C’s and exclusions.

So, hive mind – who’s good, who’s bad, is it worth having at all now the likely major expense item is covered elsewhere?

Self insure?

If you take out an insurance policy for everything in a house you’ll be forking out £1000s when self insuring would be cheaper…

possibly…..

Is it worth it once the bolier is covered? Major loss of water is probably covered under your contract with the water supplier, sometimes utilities will cover one major leak every five year period, check your Ts and Cs. Any other repair or disaster would be covered by your household insurance, surely? Presumably you set the excess when taking out the policy?

learning how to do some basics yourself can save a fortune in plumbing call out fees – e.g. leaky tap, swapping a rad, waste pipe connections etc. Its not difficult.

If you have a newish/up to code electrical system I fail to see how electrical systems need insurance….

Self insurance is something I’d not thought of but I’ve actually done without realising it when we cancelled out cat insurance and paid the monthly figure into a savings account instead….. saved loads then.

yeah, I wouldn’t cover the boiler/CH system anymore as the effect of having it serviced by the installer is to cover it anyway, so it would be only plumbing and electricity. So the cost drops from currently close on £600 pa (my bad, for allowing it to roll over year after year) to a £70 service pa for the CH for the next 7 years, and then i can get basic cover via eg: Go Compare for <£100 for the years for the other two. But as I say, when the policy doc runs to 50+ pages, trawling right through and comparing exclusions leaves me cold.

Seems that lower cost policies (~ £50 pa) only cover for emergencies, as opposed to repairs (so if your pipe bursts they helpfully turn the water off but don’t fix the pipe) so you’d have to self insure or accept that risk anyway. Others at give or take a tenner a month seem to be better coverage but again, wondered who others use and any experiences.

Why would you insure water and electrics separately? Surely any damage caused is covered under your household insurance? CH I can understand but not those 2.

FWIW, Severn Trent do a water damage insurance and the first year is something like 60p a month as a special offer. Took it out purely as it covers everything and I’m currently in a DIY renovation where I could conceivably put a nail through a pipe or something but I won’t be renewing it.

Why – like all insurance, in case something goes wrong.

It might not be a catastrophic failure resulting in a home insurance claim with a big excess, but say your lighting circuit suddenly started tripping randomly, you could call an electrician and pay his call out and repair fee, or you might have the know how to trace the loose connection yourself, but currently i phone bg and they send a man who fixes it.

IME the greatest chance of a breakdown (corroborated on this forum too) is CH, especially combi boilers
Hopefully a new boiler should be trouble-free for a few years, and electrical and plumbing stuff is normally fairly simple, eg toilet syphons, etc
Unless you have a likely weak area (eg we have an old incoming water main and old sewers) then I would service what needs a service and save to pay a trade on the odd occasion that you might need them

It’s a waste of money in my opinion, but then I’ve never needed repairs to Boiler, CH, water, or electrics etc, so what do i know?

If you’re a worrier though, pay for it and get peace of mind …

that’s back to the point though – pay for it and you get peace of mind – but with such a variety of companies and policies running to 50 pages with exclusions and the like, how do you know you have peace of mind?

“So, hive mind – who’s good, who’s bad, is it worth having at all now the likely major expense item is covered elsewhere?”

vote seems to come down to self insure, it ain’t worth it; but IF i was to go down the route of buying a policy – who?