Contents insurance

[Robert Poste's Child]

My insurance annual premium has gone up massively. When I asked they said it's due to the government increasing tax on insurance (think they said 10% the last two years) and because they gave me a ?15 discount last year after I complained about the hike they tried to make then. Basically it's gone up 60% on last year and 85% on when I took it out two years ago, so even taking increased tax into account there seems to be a 20% increase. There have been no claims or changes to the policy.

Is anyone else finding insurance has gone up like this and can it really be accounted for by changes in tax as they said, or are they just pulling a fast one?

[cella]

I am going through this annual process currently and finding the same. The Post Office have emailed me saying they guarantee 50% less if like for like so will test this!

[Robert Poste's Child]

Thanks for the tip, will have a look.

[miga]

Mine's pretty vanilla - but i found that over 2 yrs my policy went up massively (easily 50-75%). Yet shopping around, I got it back down to the original price.

[uncleglen]

Have you got all-singing , all-dancing security? Even without an alarm or cctv, following all the specs for door locks, window locks etc lowered mine.

[Robert Poste's Child]

I have, as far as you can with rented. I guess it just means shopping around yet again. Boring. When I was finally old enough to get it from SAGA a couple of years ago I thought they'd treat existing customers as well as new ones. Seems I was wrong and it's the same old nonsense.

[nxjen]

I had the same experience with Saga, incredibly cheap when I first took it out but gradually crept up to an enormous amount. Last time it was due I bit the bullet and shopped around and got a much much better deal. Suspect I will have to do the same again in a couple of years. Same thing happened with buildings insurance as well, not with Saga, so again changed provider.

[Robert Poste's Child]

Must be my day for financial annoyances. My tax demand included nearly ?80 for longstanding donations to charity where they claim gift aid and I wasn't earning enough to pay tax, so HMRC charges me for the gift aid. I never realises I should have done something about it. Suddenly not feeling very charitable...

And the washing machine's on the blink. Grumble, grumble.

[dbboy]

Sadly it is a case of shop around to get a good deal.

[PeckhamRose]

I would also recommend using a Broker. They often get lower rates from companies.

[Robert Poste's Child]

Got 45% lower with Tesco - so a replay of what happened when I switched to Saga 2 years ago but with positions reversed. Heigh ho. Suppose it almost recoups the cost of the gift aid so ending the day roughly cost-neutral.

[Loz]

Insurance Premium Tax just went from 10% to 12%. They are fibbing!

Sadly, few if any insurance companies reward loyalty. Shopping around is the best way. If you don't fancy talking to a broker then the comparison websites are probably the best route.

[womanofdulwich]

My building insurance is with lv and I negotiated a very slight reduction today on last year's premium.

[Pugwash]

Halifax charged me a massive amount last year for property insurance only - when I queried it as several hundreds of ?s more, they offered me a different rate as a 'new' customer, but warned that I will have an increase this year to almost a ?1000 pa!!.

We use Swinton for our contents insurance so I will be asking them for a quote for property nearer the time.

[singalto]

I change insurance companies every year!