?450.00 buildings and contents insurance

[tomskip]

Does this seem like a lot or fine for an average family with average contents in an average SE22 house?

Apologies for the most excessively boring thread ever.

[indiepanda]

I would dream of getting premiums that low round here.

Insurers see my postcode as being a high subsidence risk, plenty won't quote and and the last specialist I tried wanted to put a 40k excess on subsidence claims (despite having seen the survey which says movement is historic), so I am stuck paying nearly ?1k. My house isn't large either - 3 bed half house, but the third is a loft conversion - i.e. the ground floor size is that of a two bed. No exciting contents either.

[Calsug]

seems pretty reasonable to me to be honest maybe a bit cheap - what cover do you get for that?

[DovertheRoad]

Tomskip - it all depends on what your covering e.g. term value of your contents, type of building etc. crime rates in your postcode....a whole host of factors go into calculating the premium.

I agree with Calsug - ?450 is cheap and so I'd be worried you have enough cover. To most consumers, all home and content insurance is a commodity and is the same...but it's not. There can be huge differences in cover that you only find out about when you need it. Good insurers such as Hiscox charge more but you get a very comprehensive cover and excellent claims service in return. Things to check are:

- Jewellery/valuables cover

- Laptop / gadget cover

- Cash cover including outside of the house

- Subsidence cover - especially in SE22. Many insurers will quote higher for this but you can often get them down by providing an independent survey / report which costs money but can save you ?100's over the longer term.

- Rebuild cost - check your buildings covers a total loss scenario and that the buildings value is enough to cover cost of rebuilding.

By comparison we pay about ?700 pa for combined home and contents in a 4 bed house in SE22.

[redjam]

Ours is ?230 for a 4-bed family terraced house, insured with Sainsburys Bank. Covers subsidence, rebuild cost, personal possessions including cycles and laptop outside the home etc. Single article limit of ?2k (I don't have expensive jewellery or anything like that so I can't think of anything in the house that costs more than that). I know all this as it was just up for renewal so the letter is sitting right here on my desk!

Our house insurance used to cost a lot more as we did that thing of just staying with the same company and accepting that our premium crept up and up each year. Then a few years ago I gripped it and shopped around and saved about ?350/yr by swapping policies. So far Sainsburys have been good to deal with, though (touching wood frantically) I've not had to claim yet.

Definitely worth shopping around though as the previous poster says, you do have to compare like-for-like. I also saved a fortune by gripping my gas/electricity supply and swapping from NPower to a company I'd never heard of (Flow), which has been absolutely fine and again well worth doing.

God, though, it's boring being a grown-up, isn't it?

[Siduhe]

Mine is double that but we have some specific items insured, a high level of cover and a non-standard roof, so it's at the high end of what most people expect to pay round here.

[tomskip]

Thanks for replying.

Well, I went on the Direct Line website and plugged in our data. There were no questions about level of cover or any details about type of contents (ours are all drearily average anyway) just address and type of house etc. Took less than 5 minutes. Computer said ?275! So we went back to our usual company, the ones who'd sent the renewal quote of ?450, and after about 10 minutes of umming and ahhing and "seeing what they could do" they gave us ?150 off.

So, buns for tea!

[redjam]

Result! Well done you. Definitely worth shopping around and kicking up a bit of a fuss if need be. These companies rely on our inertia.

[singalto]

Mine is about ?185 for a 4 bed house with an extra ?65 with a different company for certain specific items.

[Sue]

redjam Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Ours is ?230 for a 4-bed family terraced house,

> insured with Sainsburys Bank. Covers subsidence,

> rebuild cost, personal possessions including

> cycles and laptop outside the home etc. Single

> article limit of ?2k (I don't have expensive

> jewellery or anything like that so I can't think

> of anything in the house that costs more than

> that). I know all this as it was just up for

> renewal so the letter is sitting right here on my

> desk!

>

> Our house insurance used to cost a lot more as we

> did that thing of just staying with the same

> company and accepting that our premium crept up

> and up each year. Then a few years ago I gripped

> it and shopped around and saved about ?350/yr by

> swapping policies. So far Sainsburys have been

> good to deal with, though (touching wood

> frantically) I've not had to claim yet.

>

> Definitely worth shopping around though as the

> previous poster says, you do have to compare

> like-for-like. I also saved a fortune by gripping

> my gas/electricity supply and swapping from NPower

> to a company I'd never heard of (Flow), which has

> been absolutely fine and again well worth doing.

>

> God, though, it's boring being a grown-up, isn't

> it?

I'm with Flow and their customer service is very good too.

However I do always check out alternatives whenever my current contract comes to an end, and sometimes in between as well.