Let's Talk Insurance

The Garage
#1

G’day,

I’ve had my home/contents/vehicle insurance with Suncorp now since 2005. Basically in that time, I’ve had only 1 major claim ($6k burglary in 06), and about 3 years ago, a “bad scratch” from someone at a car park that was ultimately agreed as not at fault, no excess charged as I provided the other person’s rego.

My problem? Despite admittedly very agreeable claims acceptance, the premiums are huge. My home contents came in a few weeks ago - $508 for around $83k of goods. Then just now, my car renewal has arrived - this is a car worth $5k, and they want $650/pa… I’ve just done 3 online quotes, with both “cheap” and premium insurers, and all came in at around half that cost.

Is peace of mind really worth $1150 per year? (And - I don’t mean that I’m considering dropping all insurance!)

Can someone suggest to me who they feel is a “good insurer”?

Cheers

cosmic

#2

In fact, I think I’ll just “to hell with it all” and go with RACV… their online quotes came in around $250 cheaper between contents & vehicle…

#3

Remember Cosmic, that you are not just insuring your car, you are insuring against claims from another party where you were at fault, and your insurer pays their’s. That’s comprehensive insurance.

I think home contents premiums are based on information provided regarding the security of the home, deadlocks, alarm etc. and also the post code, which indicates the level of risk by geography.

#4

For a car only worth $5K is comprehensive worth it? Third party fire and theft covers any damage to the other person’s vehicle or property and may be more suitable?

#5

@JimWOz Unfortunately in a rental, there’s not much control over things like security… Well, I’m sure some landlords wouldn’t object if you wanted to upgrade their house’s locks etc… :}

@AVC Unfortunately again, whilst comprehensive probably is not “worthwhile” in most senses, if we were to lose the car, there’s no funds to replace it, so 3rd Party Fire Theft doesn’t cut it. :frowning:

Been getting calls all day from Youi… Tried their ONLINE quote last night, only to find out at the end - no quote provided, they would instead call me to discuss. Apparently this is how their ONLINE quotes work.

#6

Yes, isn’t it ridiculous? I hate that about Youi, and then to make it worse, you go through all the same sorts of questions on the phone with their person, only to find that they are hundreds of dollars more expensive than anyone else. And their smarmy ads really piss me off too. No Youi, you don’t get me.

#7

Done that, too. Got to the end, having supplied details, and closed the browser window. Immediately got a phone call. Told them it wasn’t an online quote and hung up. Immediately got another call from a supervisor. Same response.

From what I hear, there’s no such thing as loyalty in insurance these days. Each year, you ring around for the best deal, since so many places offer discounts for new signings. On the other hand, I have heard that it can be worthwhile to ring back, say, Suncorp, and tell them that someone else has a better deal - can they match it?

#8

I tried to talk Suncorp down once at their Indooroopilly store… Totally shot down.

After moving down here and getting renewals that were MASSIVELY over the previous year, with nil claims, I emailed them stating to reduce or lose a customer. They knocked $430 off, so I stayed.

Now each year the increase hasn’t been huge again, but it all adds up…

My concern is just about how good an insurer is at paying out on legitimate claims…

Hopefully Racv, being more than say Bingle, less than Allianz, will be good.

#9

I hate the concept of YOUI too.

They are playing the game that ends up with people with health issues not being able to even get insurance. They’ll never get my money.

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#10

Youi was something like $1200 to insure my 2013 SV6 wagon where the competitors were around half that, so much for saving me money!

The car does 500-700 highway kilometres per week with no city driving at all, is locked in a garage in a dead-end street, parked in a secure carpark at work, clean history, etc, etc. But Youi get me, they know I want to pay an extra $600 per year.

I have been with Allianz for the past 3 years, they’ve been good enough to swap policies over from one car to another without any extra fees and they’ve always come in the cheapest. I’ve go online and create a new policy rather than just pay the renewal fee though, it normally ends up being $20 or so cheaper.

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#11

Even when I had a staff discount with Allianz (ahem 15 yr ago) they were very expensive… I think they must have repositioned themselves in the market…

#12

My comprehensive insurance seems to go up every year, and the value insured goes down… I questioned it this year and apparently older cars have more accidents. Despite the fact I’ve had the car since new and have had two minor claims for a windscreen and when someone else scraped me in a car park. Bah humbug. I get discounts (on the inflated price) as I have home/car/ctp all with NRMA but I’m considering moving everything next year.

#13

I’ve bounced between different providers a few times. I’m happy to move house, contents and cars at the same time if they can do a decent deal too.

A couple of years ago with NRMA (who had been decent value for a few years) prices went up and when I checked around I could get about 20% better with Shannons. I rang NRMA and asked what they could do and their answer was “do you know that NRMA pay out the highest percentage of all claims?” and “are you sure they cover everything we do?”… They refused to offer any discount or do anything further. I went through the call centre, the manager (who they suggested) and then the cancellations department after I signed up with Shannons… the cancellations people went so far as to tell me that if I left I would lose my 5 year LOYALTY discount … I had clearly told them exactly what I was paying and if they could match it I’d happily stay…“do you know that NRMA pay out the highest percentage of all claims?” and “are you sure they cover everything we do?”…

I had actually red the PDS for both and they looked pretty damn similar at the time. meh I’m 37, have no at fault claims (and two not at faults in 20 years between my wife and I) and we pay cash up front… hardly a bad/risky customer.

Every year I now do a couple of quotes and see what I can do elsewhere, these companies don’t care and offer very little in the way of loyalty.

#14

Loyalty means nothing nowadays to insurance companies, banks or telcos. I’ve usually been a loyal customer but recent bad experiences have made me change basically all of the above and I’m getting better customer service and value for money. At this stage Apple is still providing great service and value for me but I don’t pretend to believe they are loyal to me. They are definitely taking a lot of their software customers for granted for example. Sorry to take this slightly off-topic.

#15

I’ve got RACV home and contents plus car insurance but I’ve got CGU on the Harley, Club Marine on the boat and Allianz landlord insurance on the investment properties.

From my personal experience Club Marine and Allianz are both quick and easy to deal with during claims, CGU is slower but also easy and RACV are fairly quick but they restrict you to using their repairers for home repairs (but they’re generally a bit cheaper too).

The ‘budget’ insurers do charge less but be aware that they’ve often got exclusions or limitations in the policies that can come back to bite you down the track.

It probably doesn’t matter if you’ve got a generic car (like my Camry) but if you’ve got something unusual you might want full choice of repairer. The same goes for house and contents insurance, for my generic Brick Veneer I’m happy using RACV nominated repairers but if I owned a restored period house I’d want someone with specialist skills.