Avoid being ripped off for property insurance
IF you want to avoid being ripped off when buying property insurance then you need to take about 30-minutes and follow these simple steps.
Firstly you will get a renewal price from your existing provider. If it is more or similar to the previous year and you have not had a claim or a disaster then it is almost certainly over-priced and there is a big profit waiting for the company trying to sell you it. But it is a start.
Secondly you go to a price comparison website or possibly two and using the same details from your existing insurance policy renewal (or your policy schedule – but be careful to add to the cost of rebuild or contents value to account for inflation and anything else you may have bought) get a quote. This is likely to be a very good price and give you an idea what you should be paying.
It’s worth getting a second price from another price comparison site. The big comparison sites are pretty general in their nature and you could benefit from trying a smaller specialist site as well as one of the big names that you see on TV everyday. After all, the big ones spend millions of pounds on advertising while the small ones don’t and that means they have less cost to cover and could well be more competitive.
At this stage, if the price you get from the comparison sites is higher than your renewal, then you are probably not being ripped off by your existing company. But if the prices on offer are lower, then your own company that says you are a valued customer could be trying to rip you off.
Thirdly, you call your existing insurance company up and tell them you would like to renew with them but the price is too high. In most cases they will offer you a lower price. They may even ask you for any alternative price you might have got from elsewhere. Tell them the truth and what price you have got from the comparison sites – providing it is lower. If the price is not lower, just tell them you haven’t got an alternative but you think their price is high. Either way they will do their best to help you.
If your insurance company comes back with a lower price than the price comparison sites then take it and be content you have not been ripped off.
If your existing company’s price is higher than the price comparison sites – or whichever one of the sites you visited that was cheapest – then say goodbye and buy your policy from the price comparison site instead, happy in the knowledge you have not been ripped off for your property insurance. It’s as simple as that and 30-minutes is all it will take even with a slow Internet connection.
Jason McClean
The Property Insurer
