Home House Insurance price drop...

I have just received my house insurance quote from AXA and it shows a drop in excess of 100 euro for the year or ~25% drop. This includes cover for the house and also my partners engagement ring as an all-risks item

I do a comprehensive comparison last year and went with AXA as they were the cheapest at the time

I was not expecting a price drop this year, and definitely not that scale of a drop. Are others experiencing this behaviour? Makes a welcome change from the constant price increases...

I got my renewal from Aviva today at €367 as an existing customer. Went online and was given a quote of €348 as a new customer.
I rang to see if they would match the online price and they refused. Considering I went to the trouble of making a phone call I thought that they might have matched but they were having none of it.

Try Blue insurance. I got the two year insurance deal with them last year for just a bit more than the 1 year price from 2016.

Grizzly said:

I got my renewal from Aviva today at €367 as an existing customer. Went online and was given a quote of €348 as a new customer.
I rang to see if they would match the online price and they refused.

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In my case I have both house insurance and car insurance with Aviva. If you have both of these policies they will give you one year's travel insurance for free. The problem is....they never told me about this offer.
When I got my House Insurance renewal that consisted of about 8 pages there was no mention of this offer nor leaflet inserted to advise me of this. It seems as if they don't want existing customers to know about it.
You have to go online to see this. Most people would just pay the renewal when it arrives in the post and wouldn't spot it unless they logged on to their webpage.

I recently got a huge amount of pages from Aviva in respect of my Home Insurance renewal. A lot of this was about "changes to my policy" conditions. There were numerous references to my policy book that was sent to me 3 years ago when I first took out m Home Insurance. Unless I had this book by my side there was no way that I could understand all the changes that were being made.

I am beginning to believe that I am not really insured for anything anymore and that on an annual basis I am just sending them a donation.

I also don't like the way they treat existing customers. In order to get a lower premium you have to log on every year as a new customer.

Laramie said:

I am beginning to believe that I am not really insured for anything anymore and that on an annual basis I am just sending them a donation.

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If you have a claim they may or may not pay out, it is unrealistic to think you can know in advance wether or not. Most likely they will pay out, but you can be refused for random reasons.

cremeegg said:

If you have a claim they may or may not pay out, it is unrealistic to think you can know in advance wether or not. Most likely they will pay out, but you can be refused for random reasons.

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Yes but the main reason for non-payment is non-disclosure of material facts such as level of flat roofs (or lack of maintenance on them), living in a flooding area, unoccupied or rented houses etc. I would wonder how many claims are refused because of 'unrealistic reasons', and whether this would stand up on complaint to FSO?
Another reason for refusal to pay out is failure to annually service house alarms, boilers etc

gnf_ireland said:

Another reason for refusal to pay out is failure to annually service house alarms, boilers etc

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Is it a condition of insurance that the boiler is serviced annually?

It may well be, I certainly was not aware of that. So I too have just been sending them a donation for the last 2 years, (the boiler was serviced 3 years ago).

And the chances that I will get my premium back as I am not in fact covered?

cremeegg said:

Is it a condition of insurance that the boiler is serviced annually?
It may well be, I certainly was not aware of that.

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https://www.zurich.ie/homeinsurance-policy-form-june2017.pdf
Very top of page 7:
"All chimneys and/or flues to solid fuel stoves, boilers and open fires should cleaned by a professional at least once a year. Any damage to the chimney or flues that may give rise to a claim should be reported to us in accordance with the time periods referenced in Condition 7 of this Policy under the heading ‘Policy Conditions’."

May not be the case for all insurers, but I am aware that some do have it as a pre-condition. I remember reading either the FBD or AXA policy in detail at some stage (to ensure it covered childminders working in the home) and saw it as a condition for one of them. Zurich also have it as a condition, or at least a consideration as linked above

cremeegg said:

So I too have just been sending them a donation for the last 2 years, (the boiler was serviced 3 years ago).
And the chances that I will get my premium back as I am not in fact covered?

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Worth a try Not sure your mortgage provider would be too impressed though...