Home Best deal on market at present for home insurance

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Roro999

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For people who have shopped around of late has anyone any recommendations for home insurance renewal ?
 
Impossible to identify a "best deal" in general given that insurance premiums vary so much depending on underwriting/actuarial criteria for a specific risk/customer/case and the insurers' market segmentation/focus.

All one can do is shop around as widely as possible online and maybe via a broker or two if necessary and justified given the cost involved.
 
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The cheapest quote for house insurance I've come across so far is the renewal offer from my current broker An Post which is a bit disappointing as
theirs is the guts of €200 more than last year. I've tried chill and bonkers so far.
 
I've never ever found An Post to be at all competitive when shopping for home and motor insurance for myself and others. But maybe they are for some other set of underwriting and personal criteria...
 
As above too many variables to have a definitive answer.

However, the best deal I got in late 2024 was from the crowd I took out my insurance with in late 2023. It was not the renewal quote they sent me but a better rate offered when I (re)applied as a (so called) new customer via their website.

Unless there's a reason why you can't do it online, a half hour googling (other search engines are available) insurance firms and some personal details will quickly give you a sense of where your best offer resides
 
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Brokers steer you towards companies that provide them with the best fee.Online is normally the best.I found AXA direct have recently become very competitive.
 
Clonback said:
Brokers steer you towards companies that provide them with the best fee.Online is normally the best.I found AXA direct have recently become very competitive.
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Car Insurance - Differential pricing

I just got a car insurance quote from AIG. It has increased purely because they increased their minimum premium from €280 last year to €330 this year. When I did an online quote the minimum premium applied was €280. (Although the quote was still higher). My question is, are insurance companies...
www.askaboutmoney.com
 
As clubman says, it's impossible to know for any specific property due to how they manage their risks.

If company A has too many 3 bed semis in Naas, they will increase the price to avoid getting more of them.
If they are low on 4 bed rural detached, they will entice more by reducing the price.

You can have a situation (I had it) where the same insurer will give a better quote for a large 4 bed detached in Kildare than a mid size 3 bed detached in Tipperary even though the Tipp property was 200k less!

So it's literally trying to find the best for your property at the present time and that requires a bit of shopping around.
 
How are people fairing with the SCSI calculator? I was prompted on their website to contact a Chartered Quantity Survey and we did a long multiplication sum on the phone to work out the cost of a potential rebuild as my property size was not listed.
 
Can a person with building exerience for example not estimate it themselves at a lower value if they [undertake ]are prepared to pay say 10 or20% of the re building cost in the event of a claim same as health insurance.It seems perhaps the insurance companies refer to SCSI so as to value it high to increase ones annual premium significantly.?
 
DK123 said:
It seems perhaps the insurance companies refer to SCSI so as to value it high to increase ones annual premium significantly.?
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The insurers don't rely on the SCSI data. No two homes are the same so if you make a claim, they will send an assessor to your property who will do a detailed evaluation to arrive at a total rebuild cost for your property to include all fixtures and fittings. That estimate will be based on the costs of the trades and supplies as they stand at the time.

They advise people to use the SCSI data as a guide but still make it clear that the home owner is responsible for ensuring the value they submit does indeed cover the full rebuild costs or their particular property.

If it comes to making a claim, they won't care what you might be able to get a builder to do, they will base any payout on their own assessment and will cut any payout by the factor they believe you under-insured.
 
I moved to AXA last year, also found them very compeditive. Usual caveats, watch rebuilding costs, and excesses, and overall coverages to compare like with like.
 
Have been An post for years - looked around for alternatives every year. For next year they have provided a quote which is about 20% up on last year. Bonkers is not showing much better either. We have never made a claim of any sort. Frustrating.
 
presidenttttt said:
looked around for alternatives every year.
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And you couldn't get a better quote elsewhere? I've generally switched home and car insurance every year in order to get the best value for money. (Just to note that price isn't/shouldn't be the only deciding criterion).
 
Nope. An post have consistently been leading across home and car insurance for me for 5+ years, occasionally others have gotten close but if its under about 30-40 euro I will try to keep everything under one provider to not lose any multiples benefit code. An post have also been very reasonable to deal with when I had questions - though cant comment on claims processes as have not used them.
 
Interesting. Any time that I've checked An Post for home or motor insurance they have been among the most expensive.
 
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