Wednesday 15 February 2012

Insurance companies offering flood insurance cover

Neil Cook, insurance broker has today sent us this note. We have deleted part of the names of the insurance firms he refers to.



“I was just speaking to a client unfortunately he was with a firm called insurance XXXXX although he was in a very low risk flood area they charged him an unreasonable premium with a vast unjustified £2500 flood excess which in truth was unacceptable to his mortgage company so was not worth the paper it was written on I got him a quote that cost 25% with just a £100 flood excess.



Other common bad practice is offering those with flood cover policies excluding flood that still cost a fortune when in truth I as am a true specialist can always get flood cover at affordable prices. I never unlike others ask for flood surveys which in themselves cost a lot of money so I
can offer an instant saving.



Similar bad practice applies to homes suffering from subsidence, mining subsidence, historic movement IE cracking in an older property. Bad specialists require expensive survey reports upfront which is no help if the house is on the market then charge unfair premiums and unrealistic subsidence excesses. The client needs to remember that your lender will only
accept a policy with a £1500 subsidence excess at most although some lenders will only accept £1000 again don't take cover without subsidence you can often find full cover through a true specialist at less premiums less than you would expect.



Don't be fooled by the bad brokers when they say "you don't have to tell the lender about the flood or subsidence excess" your lender will find out and will cancel your mortgage.



Nor should you be fooled by your insurer or the rantings/scare mongering from the Association of British Insurers that if you have suffered flood or subsidence that you must stay with the existing insurer and pay vast premiums for the privilege!



Common bad brokers are insuranceXXXX and  XXXXX (some real horror stories about them such as a cheap premium that once pay for it, it doubles in price) Neil also names a further nine companies and mentions insurance companies who claim to offer specialist cover, but in fact don't as they just own the search engine writes to the word "insurance" so don't be fooled by them either please.



It might be worth setting up a forum were clients can name and shame bad brokers like this."



If you would be interested, please contact Neil Cook here about this.


If you want an insurance quote from Neil Cook, please follow this link.

Source: Neil Cook

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