House Insurance premiums inflated

[Ed054]

got 3 years insurance with Zurich last year, one less thing to worry about for a while.

Rebuild costs are sky-rocketing though, had to increase ours by about 50% at the time. As I understand it if you have to make any claim, and the assessor finds you are under-insured, your claim will be reduced by the same percentage.

SCSI have a new rebuild guide out.
If a homeowner hasn’t revised their building sum insured since 2021 they are now 33% underinsured.
For every €10 they claim their insurer will only pay out €6.66
That’s taking that they had an accurate sum insured in 2021….

I am a loss assessor and I am seeing more and more claims where there are substantial deductions for underinsurance.
Don't forget to make sure that you also have a sufficient level of contents cover.
As a very rough rule of thumb I suggest a figure of between €15-€20K per bedroom (so a 3bed has overall contents cover of €45-€60K and so on) which should provide a reasonable level of cover for the majority of properties.

 

[Clamball]

Just got renewal notice from Zurich, I know I increased rebuild cost substantially last year, I had it at €385K, they are now saying €481K is rebuilding cost. I had a go on the SSAI website, they are saying €373K.

Zurich are estimating a 25% increase. Premium is €606

 

[Premos]

And for the owners of apartments, I would suggest making sure that the building sum insured by the OMC is up to date. Easier to miss as most people would not organise the insurance themselves.

 

[ClubMan]

Just got renewal notice from Zurich, I know I increased rebuild cost substantially last year, I had it at €385K, they are now saying €481K is rebuilding cost. I had a go on the SSAI website, they are saying €373K.

Zurich are estimating a 25% increase. Premium is €606

They're probably just increasing the buildings cover based on some formula as opposed to actually ascertaining that that's your actual rebuilding cost. You're in a better place than they are to more accurately estimate the actual rebuilding costs using the SCS calculator and your own knowledge of the property etc. But it can be a bit of a balancing act to avoid underinsuring while not (excessively) overinsuring and paying unnecessarily over the odds...

 

[Barney 123]

I posted earlier about the higher quotes I was getting from rival companies. I tried Chill thinking they have access to lots of companies and they quoted me €1000!!
I made enquiries from someone in the know and they said the insurance companies don't want your business at this stage of the year, they already have their quota.
I found this interesting and it makes sense that renewing insurance at this stage of the year is going to be costly!!!!

 

[ClubMan]

I made enquiries from someone in the know and they said the insurance companies don't want your business at this stage of the year, they already have their quota.
I found this interesting and it makes sense that renewing insurance at this stage of the year is going to be costly!!!!

I'd be skeptical about that analysis without something to back it up.