It's that time of the year when the annual home insurance renewal quote has come in.
The quote is neigh on £1000 - an increase of £85 from last year.
We've lived where we are for 5 years and I've always thought the home insurance quotes for the house have been high, certainly higher than our previous home.
House is traditional build, no flat roofs, detached, not in a flood risk area, not in a crime hotspot etc.
We have never made an insurance claim.
Every year I have asked our insurer (the insurer has varied over the years) if there are any "markers" on the property to substantiate the "high" premium and no one has ever said anything other than insurance is expensive 🙄
Previous home owners had lived here for 40 plus years. I checked back through the original disclosures and there had been no home claims for flooding etc.
I don't think our insurance is covering much more than what now constitutes a "standard offer".
My folks, who have made a claim in the last year, have seen their premium increase but their renewal is less than £500 and their house is semi detached.
I appreciate I don't have to accept the premium increase and I could go down the MSM route but I'm not clear as to what I should really expect.
It's just disheartening.
If you're not trying to insure specific value contents (like bikes or jewellery) then spend 10mins with money supermarket creating an account and plugging your details in, and see where it gets you? You'll then have a kind of benchmark each year.
Have you checked your credit files to see if there's anything out of place?
If you're not trying to insure specific value contents (like bikes or jewellery) then spend 10mins with money supermarket creating an account and plugging your details in, and see where it gets you? You'll then have a kind of benchmark each year.
Have you checked your credit files to see if there's anything out of place?
Thanks RM.
No issues with credit files.
Have you tried calling an insurance broker as well as the comparison sites?
Just to make you feel better - my insurance for my flat ( all bells and whistles house and contents) slowly crept up to well over £1000 pa. I have a week to get a new more reasonable policy
That's mad! I pay £23 a month = £276 including the premium for paying monthly.
3 bed semi, jewellery, bikes, electronics....
I thought when I read the start that the head in hands bit was going to be that you'd shopped around and realised that you'd been paying well over the odds and had 'wasted' thousands over the years, but you say that you've had various insurers. Have you been with a broker rather than a prime and they've 'shopped around' for you or are they your own efforts to have used different insurers.
Definitely shop around - that seems as I say mad, and Google confirms it
https://www.gocompare.com/home-insurance/how-much-does-home-insurance-cost/
and don't be disheartened, shopping for insurance is dullsville, but you might be about to put several hundred pounds in your pocket (and then be disheartened about the money you 'wasted' by not doing it sooner)
I use Confused as an annual comparison. It does specified items just fine.
Mine is under £500 for a platinum tier cover on a detached house (with some flat roof, bikes etc).
Mine has come down over the last 2 years but I've had to move to get that, but I've never gone with the cheapest.
Indeed you are paying the price for not seeking cheaper quotes. It's boring, but half an hour of work can put a lot of money back into your pocket.
Never renew back with same folk unless they genuinely match lower quotes and quality of cover.
Maybe it's time to start the insurance thread again to find out who's doing decent cover for a few nice bikes and what value they top out at.
M&S were silly last year but had us over a barrel. I believe that pedal over are back in the game after pricing themselves out for a few years.
Ours crept up over the years and when I finally looked into it I found what we were covering for contents value had gone up a silly amount. Quick call reduced it down and therefor the cost reduced. Great…no! The following year they just put the premium back up despite having reduced the contents value.
Be careful on reducing contents value - the sum total of your contents is often a lot more than you think.
On a slight thread hijack (and possibly contradicting my previous comment above), but a conundrum as to “what’s it worth?". My MIL an engagement ring apparently worthy of its valuation for insurance purposes which was last put at £17K by a local jeweller. MIL has passed away recently and the same jeweller has certified a probate value of a little over £3K, but then added that if Mrs BH wanted to sell it to them it probably wouldn’t fetch more then £500. I know there is new for old, old for old and all that but this all feels a little cosy between jewellers and insurance companies
Thanks folks.
Just a bit more context.
With the exception of last year we have shopped around every year and have had 3 insurers over the last four years - the first year (in this house) was via a broker, second via my bank, third via a well respected national and we went with them again last year as the premium change was negligible.
I've had a chat with a broker today and it looks like we might have a few more options ticked re cover that is accentuating the costs. The insinuation was "you are paying for what you are getting (cover wise) but do you need all the options you have ticked?"
In our last house we always went via a broker but the annual sums were ~ half what we are seeing at the moment and so seemed less of an issue (this makes more sense in my head than reading it back!)
I've got no expectations that costs won't continue to rise, as they always have, but nearly hitting a £1000 was a bit of a WTF moment.