Cost of Living - Shrinkflation is speeding up at an alarming rate

I still have no idea how you could get a £100/month house insurance cost. Even walking into to a high street bank with every option ticked wouldn’t be that expensive.

Even £200 for contents only seems expensive. I’d normally get building, £100k+ content plus a load of declared extras and cover for personal belongings abroad for less.

Also I’d have thought it’s actually houses in nicer areas which pay higher prices because the claims and bigger and burglars don’t target people that don’t have things worth stealing. Bigger houses, more stuff, more expensive stuff, more pipes (escape of water), more electrical stuff (fire).

On the quote form, there are only really 3 comparison sites, compare the market, confused and money supermarket. All others are affiliated with one of those 3, hence the forms look the same.

P.S. you’re going to need to get over filling in these forms with your details or trawl 20-30 different companies every year. No one can give you an accurate price if you just put nonsense in. Either that or use a broker.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I still have no idea how you could get a £100/month house insurance cost. Even walking into to a high street bank with every option ticked wouldn’t be that expensive.

Even £200 for contents only seems expensive. I’d normally get building, £100k+ content plus a load of declared extras and cover for personal belongings abroad for less.

Also I’d have thought it’s actually houses in nicer areas which pay higher prices because the claims and bigger and burglars don’t target people that don’t have things worth stealing. Bigger houses, more stuff, more expensive stuff, more pipes (escape of water), more electrical stuff (fire).

On the quote form, there are only really 3 comparison sites, compare the market, confused and money supermarket. All others are affiliated with one of those 3, hence the forms look the same.

P.S. you’re going to need to get over filling in these forms with your details or trawl 20-30 different companies every year. No one can give you an accurate price if you just put nonsense in. Either that or use a broker.
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There is fraudulent claims as well though which I expect are higher in certain areas. Not far from me is a high level of student rentals.

The questions regarding rooms, locks, location are accurate answers, whats not provided is what they dont need to know to give me a quote which is my name and phone number. AXA asked for far less info as well, their's seemed much more relevant to giving a quote, confused and uswitch was akin to collecting data for marketing purposes.

Also the £200 was the cheapest out of 3 options, 15k cover with no accidental damage, 100k cover was £700.


They emailed summary.

The £210 is contents up to 15k, but valuables only up to 10k, no accidental damage, cap of £1500 per item value.

The £700 has same per item cap, but includes accidental damage, contents 100k, valuables 30k. Accidental damage included.

Neither have any info on excess. They all exclude losses when away.

I will update the thread if confused actually emails me any quotes.
 
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That's bad. I pay £250 with over 10k of watches and 1k of bikes declared with away from home cover. Your excess must be super low to be in that ball park.
 
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dlockers said:
That's bad. I pay £250 with over 10k of watches and 1k of bikes declared with away from home cover. Your excess must be super low to be in that ball park.
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There was no option to choose an excess. I just think its my area, tomorrow I will try a new quote from a posher area. If there was one though, why would I want an excess? the point is for the insurance company to reimburse losses, not just part of them.

But glad we agree its bad. :)
 
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chrcoluk said:
There was no option to choose an excess. I just think its my area, tomorrow I will try a new quote from a posher area. If there was one though, why would I want an excess? the point is for the insurance company to reimburse losses, not just part of them.

But glad we agree its bad. :)
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Ah right so you have no excess, that's why it is so high and you are paying silly money.
 
chrcoluk said:
I will check tomorrow if I missed an excess option, but I dont remember seeing one. Dont think I would want it much more than £50-100 though.
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£50-100 is very low.

Source: I just cut mine from £550/year to £240 by going from £100 excess to £250.

Anything less than £250 I'd be sucking up myself anyway tbh. Ain't got time for the paperwork!
 
~£250 excess is reasonable for home insurance. Realistically you are not going to be claiming for things which are less than £500 anyway as it will just load your premium for 3/5 years.

Do you live in a flat? That could very much be loading your premium, flats are more expensive to insure because they are inherently more risky. Your stuff can be damaged due to issues which are well outside your control (e.g. neighbours having issues such as an escape of water or fire).

I guess one other thing could be that you don't have any no claims but I wouldn't have thought that it would load your premium significantly compared to a claim.

At the end of the day, if you can afford to lose everything in your home and it not have a significant impact then yeh YOLO it if you want. In reality it's the one insurance that I'd recommend everyone get because if you need it, you really need it. I've just seen far too many horror stories of people who rent, have a problem and literally lose everything they own and they can't replace it because they didn't have insurance. It's not just the possessions either, the insurance company would normally pay for alternative accommodation if needed.

Even just things like replacing clothing like for like is way more expensive than a lot of people realise, particularly in the event of a total loss. I rarely pay full price for any clothing (or frankly anything...) and I don't have any individual items which are expensive. However, if I was just left with the stuff on my back, you don't have the luxury to shop around it would cost a small fortune to replace my wardrobe at RRP. I probably have ~£250 in just pants and socks if I had to replace them all in one go at full retail price (P.S. since when were pants £30 for 3-5 pairs in a semi-decent shop like M&S, not even 'designer' :eek:). That's before considering the garments which individually cost a material amount of money each of which I probably have 150+ across t-shirts, casual shirts, trousers, shorts, office wear, suits, shoes etc. etc.

On a new for old insurance claim, this stuff adds up fast.
 
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Away from home stuff adds 40/50% premium for me and you nonetheless have to leave stuff secure like bikes inside locked car,
accidental damage too that's another money spinner for companies trading on people insecurities versus their practical experience.

As suggested, like for car insurance, making obfuscated quotes from the same IP address , they can use fingerprinting etc. is asking for problems
 
dlockers said:
£50-100 is very low.

Source: I just cut mine from £550/year to £240 by going from £100 excess to £250.

Anything less than £250 I'd be sucking up myself anyway tbh. Ain't got time for the paperwork!
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Yeah not worth it for me, so a £400 phone I would still be paying most of the outlay.

Of course these guys if they not the winners of the transaction wouldnt be in business.

Thanks for the specific info.

When I got burgled, PC and other PC equipment wasnt touched, they just went for small and high value, all my bank cards, two phones.

I would probably want something like this.

Max individual value 1.5k.
Max total value 5k.
Protection when away.
No or little excess (£100).
Accidental damage.

Cost per year no more than £100. Given that a burglary is unlikely to be anything more than a once per decade thing and for most people probably doesnt happen at all in their lives.

Instead I just keep money set aside for life emergencies and take the hit on that, my own form of insurance I guess.
 
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chrcoluk said:
Yeah not worth it for me, so a £400 phone I would still be paying most of the outlay.

Of course these guys if they not the winners of the transaction wouldnt be in business.
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Why would you claim on house insurance for a £400 phone? Specialist products for mobiles are a fraction of the cost if that's your biggest issue.
 
dlockers said:
Why would you claim on house insurance for a £400 phone? Specialist products for mobiles are a fraction of the cost if that's your biggest issue.
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Because there is unlikely anything else I would use it for, its also the only thing I would have had an option to claim on my entire life. So if you think a phone is not worth claiming on, you have also answered the question which is why would I bother with contents insurance at all?

My PC, my best phone (probably now worth about £600), are probably my two most valuable items in my home. I live more modestly than a lot of other people.

Also as you said insurance offered by banks and co, are far better value for phones.
 
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Just trying to get a building and contents quote now - most coming out around £100 pm which seems a lot. Sainsbury's was £55 I think.

Edit - down to £39pm once I removed accidental for contents and cover from home.
 
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chrcoluk said:
Yeah not worth it for me, so a £400 phone I would still be paying most of the outlay.

Of course these guys if they not the winners of the transaction wouldnt be in business.

Thanks for the specific info.

When I got burgled, PC and other PC equipment wasnt touched, they just went for small and high value, all my bank cards, two phones.

I would probably want something like this.

Max individual value 1.5k.
Max total value 5k.
Protection when away.
No or little excess (£100).
Accidental damage.

Cost per year no more than £100. Given that a burglary is unlikely to be anything more than a once per decade thing and for most people probably doesnt happen at all in their lives.

Instead I just keep money set aside for life emergencies and take the hit on that, my own form of insurance I guess.
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You’re looking at this based on individual items. That’s not the point of home insurance.

Home insurance is mainly about protecting yourself against a total loss E.g. a flood or fire or tens of thousands of damage.

Accident damage is a premium add on and may not be required. It’s meant for the likes of your kids letting go of their game controller and it smashing your £3k oled tv during a rigorous game of switch sports. If you don’t have expensive individual items, you probably will not need it.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
You’re looking at this based on individual items. That’s not the point of home insurance.

Home insurance is mainly about protecting yourself against a total loss E.g. a flood or fire or tens of thousands of damage.

Accident damage is a premium add on and may not be required. It’s meant for the likes of your kids letting go of their game controller and it smashing your £3k oled tv during a rigorous game of switch sports. If you don’t have expensive individual items, you probably will not need it.
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Well i dont own my property so structural damage is on my LL not me.
 
I’m talking about the contents only, a fire will still result in a total loss of all your stuff.

What would you do if your went up in smoke tomorrow and you are literally just left with what you had on you at the time. So 1 t-shirt, 1 pair of trousers, shoes, your phone and wallet and that’s it.

You had no financial backing and nowhere to live and no insurance company bending over to find you accommodation.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I’m talking about the contents only, a fire will still result in a total loss of all your stuff.

What would you do if your went up in smoke tomorrow and you are literally just left with what you had on you at the time. So 1 t-shirt, 1 pair of trousers, shoes, your phone and wallet and that’s it.

You had no financial backing and nowhere to live and no insurance company bending over to find you accommodation.
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How can I get that much damage if I dont have that much in valuables anyway?

Kitchen e.g. has an old microwave, kettle, toaster, and a washing machine, the rest is things like plates, pans and cutlery.

Cooker, cupboards, pipe work, boiler all that type of stuff is owned by LL.

The accommodation stuff has some value I agree on that, but I dont think these events happen often enough to justify the expense of the insurance though (at the quote I got), prefer to just keep cash aside instead.

I suppose it depends how risk averse you are, I am fine with risk taking and I look at in a logical odds vs cost thing. You describe the ideal what if insurance situation, but its not an every day thing for someone to just lose their entire home like that. I have enough money set aside where I could afford to stay in a hotel if a family member didnt take me in, and replace the bits I need to live, the actual losses that would hurt me would be losing things that cant be replaced like photos.

I also know my quotes are bad when I see the figures reported by other people like Richie and Dlockers. Tough one, as either pay more and more likely to get use out of it if I get burgled, or pay less to have large excess but then its only useful in a disaster type situation. If I owned a house and I had to insure against the actual building I would be thinking over it differently of course, but for me its not a seller for contents only.
 
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