Last week, C asked me what advice I could offer about contents insurance for the UK. I decided to ask my friend, Colleen Wagner from London Relocation Services since I never ended up getting insurance for my apartments in London.
Colleen asked her hubby what he did for their contents insurance and here’s his very helpful response:
“The comparison websites like comparethemarket.com , gocompare.com, confused.com are popular but some insurance companies like Aviva, Churchill or Directline only offer direct websites, they do not participate in the comparison sites. Normally you need to fill out a form on the sites, so they capture your data. The sites also ask for a bunch of information about your flat… whether you’re on a ground floor or top floor, have an alarm system, if you have an external door or multiple doors. Probably the most obscure questions were about the building grading (apparently a British thing of rating structures) and then the type of roof of the building… flat, steel, concrete, sloping, straw.
Annoyingly you receive e-mails and phone calls from insurance sales people after completing the info on the website. They fade away after a week or so, but none the less super annoying. Also, the quotes on the sites are not necessarily the price you will get, once you make contact with the insurance companies, they recalculate the whole policy anyway after asking you more detailed questions, and you end up with a completely different rate. This is where our process broke down, for our basic contents they wanted like £150-£200 a year, but then once you add a single item like a wedding ring for a high value, many weren’t interested in covering us, or they want like £600 a year. So I got frustrated and gave up.”
I remember doing the same thing – just giving up! I lived in 5 different flats in London, from your typical apartment building to a Victorian Terrace House, and each of those had at least 3 different locks to get in. I also lived with “Bobbies” (aka “cops”) so I guess I just felt safe enough to not bother with home insurance. I also didn’t own contents that were really worth insuring for the prices they gave. A new laptop costs less than the price to insure it. Or so it seemed to me anyway.
So, my advice? Keep on doing your research and ask for referrals from others in the UK. Perhaps you will find that amazing little insurance company that is affordable and friendly? That would be great! Please keep us posted on your progress.
For health insurance, please see this post.
Anything else you’d like me to cover here? I’m running out of topics to help other Americans & Canadians make the move to the UK so any questions you need answering, please just ask. Thanks!
Victoria Westcott
kikimoo
I went through the same thing. I had enough stuff – CDs, laptops, clothing – that I felt getting some insurance was worth it. I tried using online comparitors, but also gave up. I asked around, and ended up using Endsleigh, based on the recommendation of a friend. It is decent because they do things like covering contents for a shared flat (which many other companies won’t) and cover your downloaded music. As someone with almost 3000 songs on my iPod, I appreciate that!