Combined Buildings and Contents Insurance a Waste of Money
There are so many adverts suggesting people buy combined buildings and contents insurance from the same provider but new research suggests you’d be wasting your money.Even still, there are now insurers offering free contents insurance if you purchased buildings insurance with headline figures of cover up to £75,000.
But new research by the AA suggests that consumers would save more money by buying their contents insurance and buildings insurance from two different companies.
They say this from a survey of 25,000 home insurance policy quotes they have provided to people during May and June this year that 59% of people would be better off with 2 providers when all promotional offers and discounts have been taken into account.
Currently at least a third of people taken this type of insurance out directly with their mortgage provider probably because it’s very easy to do and less paperwork is involved. The mortgage companies probably offer some type of “discount” when purchased although online discounts and promotional offers probably outweigh this initial carrot.
The AA research suggests that people should research either online or via a broker to get the best deals and with home insurance rising due to an increase in UK crime and the amount of claims due to the recession a couple of hours research at your computer could save your a couple of hundred pounds and maybe reduce your excess and have expensive items such as jewellery taken into account with the policy.
Simon Douglas director of AA insurance says “Our study also shows that they would probably get a better deal if they bought their cover elsewhere. But the important thing is that they don’t just allow their cover to lapse – recent suggestions that the recession has led up to a fifth of householders to cancel or not renew their cover is worrying, especially at a time when claims for both burglary and weather damage are increasing”
We agree with this although of course the AA may be slightly biased because they themselves are an insurance broker but as with all insurances such as car insurance home and contents is more expensive and your house is worth, what, 10 or 20 times the value of your car. OK you don’t need home insurance by law as you do with your car (although a condition of your mortgage provider may state your need adequate buildings insurance to protect their risk of the loan they have lent you) but even so, you never know what’s going to happen.
So the morale of this story is ? Ignore the adverts and do your own research to get the cost of both your buildings and contents insurance as low as possible but also that the benefits that come with each policy that vary by insurer are right for you can cover the items you need to be replaced if something goes wrong from heavy storm damage to burglary.
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August 30th, 2009 at 10:26 am
[...] goes against recent research that shows buying combined buildings and contents insurance from the same company is a waste of [...]