Massive decrease in home insurance costs!

My renewal quote was 360 euro. I generated a new quote for increased buildings and contents value from the same company, came in just under 320 euro. Spoke to their customer service representative, who couldn't match my renewal with the new quote!
 
My renewal quote this year was just short of double what I paid last year. I queried it but didn't get anywhere. I dropped them a polite email simply stating that I wouldn't be renewing as the quote was too high.

They asked if I wanted to put in a complaint. I wasn't too pushed either way but said okay. They said grand we will take the email as a complaint. I got a letter a while afterwards listing reasons why premiums increase. None of them applied to my situation.

I renewed elsewhere at a far better price.
 
That's about all one can do when faced with unreasonable service price increases that can be avoided by going elsewhere.
 
I know this would have been completely my own fault, had it gone ahead, but I had actually left the renewal letter aside at the time without absorbing the details.

I had been with the same company a while and it didn't vary much so I was happy enough. Fortunately I took it up and read it properly before the renewal date.
 
mathepac said:
Posters could name the greedy companies and steer others towards more competitive named insurers. That'll soften their coughs for them.
Click to expand...
When it comes to insurance, it is often the case that one insurer will be expensive for one customer and competitive for another depending on the company's actuarial underwriting criteria (and how they change from year to year) and where different customers fit into their risk profiling. So, there's no point in one person claiming that a particular insurer is a rip-off when they may be good value for others.
 

While I take the point, I disagree that it's pointless naming the insurer bumping up premiums, for no good reason. Many companies simply try to take advantage of loyal customers, so need to be called out for it. Perhaps giving a little supplemental info (ie city or two, detached house, semi etc) might be good, though.
 
This could be one of those enjoy it while it lasts scenarios.

In January, we got the prompt from our household insurers to review our sums insured on buildings and contents.
We did so and put on a substantial increase.
We were a bit hampered as the SCSI calculator values did not seem to be current to the time we reviewed.
We were not charged any additional premium nor was any extra premium deferred.

We got our renewal notice this week - 21.06.23 - for late August.
Through index linking the sums insured were raised again substantially but the premium was virtually the same as last year !
The insurers said that the buildings increase was of the order of 28%.
Our policy has a healthy no claims discount so that may have helped.

BTW our insurers have now stopped the practice of setting the value of contents at an automatic 20% of the buildings sum insured.
Be careful about this as it now means that you need to look more carefully at your contents figure before renewal.
 
Surely the stand out point here is that €920 is and was a huge premium, for anything like a standard house.

Very broadly the premium should be €1.20 per €100k rebuild cost. So a house of 100 sq m with a rebuild cost of €2500 per sq m should attract a premium of €300.

Obviously contents and the details of the cover may increase that.
 
If you are rightly annoyed that company A have given you a very high quote and you have taken your business elsewhere, that is not going to stop me looking for a quote from company A.
If I blacklisted every company that has given a very high quote to me or someone I know in the past, I dont think I would have any companies to get a quote from.
 

What I hate about the response you got was it's primary focus on justification and processes as distinct from exhibiting some commercial intelligence and trying to facilitate you to some degree. Their thinking, or lack of it, seems not to understand that service providers can generate bad will as easily as good will.
 
I totally get this comment, I had a complaint with a pension provider, who just fobbed it off and told me to go to the ombudsman
Which I did and got awarded €2k, they appealed to the high court and lost
If they had taken a little interest in my complaint they could have saved themselves a lot of time and money over a simple issue rather then
just ticking a box and thinking it would go away
 
It's not just home insurance that has wild differences between companies.

My business insurance was renewed this week.

Aviva via CFM brokers (insuremyshop) €1642 including broker fee, FBD direct €3864.

Identical insurable figures used in both quotes
 
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My home insurance...

Last year, Zurich €244
This year their automatic renewal notification is €353!
That's before increasing the buildings insurance in line with latest figures.
Shopped around with 18 different sources and got quotes for higher buildings cover from €330 (Allianz) to €734 (AIG).
So going with Allianz this year.
Curiously even though I only need nominal contents cover - I started at €25K - I was able to increase this up to €65K without the premium changing.

Also - oddly enough, AIG were by far the cheapest for my car insurance.

Aviva says lowest car Insurance quote available is €280.

I renewed my car insurance today, was with Aviva - they quoted €441.51 for renewal. From reading this thread I tried Allianz online quote which did come in at €284 as stated as being the cheapest on their website. I added a few more items and paid €326.13 for renewal - overall saved myself...
www.askaboutmoney.com
So - the moral of the story yet again? Shop around.
 
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