Home insurance for Galway citizens - beware if you're renewing your policy now

_Whimsical_

I know insurers will generally screw you over and the adage "buyer beware" is never more appropriate than when dealing with them but I thought I'd ad an extra warning for Galway people in light of recent experience.

We got our renewal notice for our house insurance this week.All seemed in order, no obvious changes in the policy but it cost €150 more than last year. I rang 123.ie to see if they'd reduce the quote but they told me no. They rang me back today however to say they'd "throw in storm and flood damage protection" for the elevated price if I stayed with them as I was a long time customer.
Storm and flood damage has always been part of my policy in the past and nothing in the renewal contract I received stated that it had been removed. However after 2 checks with 123.ie an exclusion clause had definitely been added to my policy. The guy I spoke to said this is legal as somewhere in the several pages I recieved from 123.ie it says "*exclusions may be added to your policy".

Now I live in an estate on the west of the city and have never been flooded.Infact I live on a hill so it would be somewhat impossible.I have also never made a house insurance claim. The guy I spoke to told me they were going to slap exclusions of flood and storm damage or an excess of €10,000 on all new Galway policies and that many other insurers were doing likewise.

I believe this may be true as when looking online for another quote I found many insurers no longer will give an online quote to Galway customers while they will do so for other parts of the county. They tend to say "We cannot offer you insurance online.Call us to discuss this".I eventually found www.getcover.ie who did insure me for flood and storm damage etc for €100 less than 123.

The warning is though that if your policy is up for renewal please ring the company you are with and ensure that the details of your policy have not been changed. If one company thinks that it's ok to make a radical change like this without expressly informing you then others might too.

biko

Suggest you put a post in Accommodation too.

oldyouth

All Insurers now use a detailled mapping system to identify flood areas and if one refuses cover, they all will.

Very shoddy practice to hide the exclusion at renewal. Insurers are supposed to highlight any alterations in your cover. Online insurers can offer better prices at times, but this case shows the value in using a good broker, who would (should) spot these things on your behalf

_Whimsical_

Magnus wrote: »

Suggest you put a post in Accommodation too.

Good idea Magnus. I'll do that but will wait a few days as I'm thinking no one will want to hear about house insurance over Christmas.

mossfort

just got my house insurance renewal notice.
im in county galway where we never had any flooding and it has gone from 287 euros to 587 euros without having any claim.
a ridicolous increase .
that mapping system is a load of nonsense because it show warnings on areas that never flooded.
will have to shop around for the best price. :mad:

_Whimsical_

mossfort wrote: »

just got my house insurance renewal notice.
im in county galway where we never had any flooding and it has gone from 287 euros to 587 euros without having any claim.
a ridicolous increase .
that mapping system is a load of nonsense because it show warnings on areas that never flooded.
will have to shop around for the best price. :mad:

Try www.getcover.ie .I've found them the cheapest after ringing absolutely everywhere. Please do make sure that any policy you get has cover for storm and flood damage and check that the excess on your policy is reasonable. As well as increasing policy prices they intend to penalize us by putting exclusions and large excesses on galway policies too.