Home Insurance & Life Assurance..is it needed?

O'Prez

I have a fairly straight forward question...I think. I re-mortgaged the house 3 years ago. Since then my financial circumstances have taken a turn for the worse. So my question is, am I legally bound to have a life assurance policy and home insurance policy with a mortgage? If so...if I contacted someone like 123.ie for example would they not only get me cheaper options but also handle the cancellation of the policies I already have?

coylemj

You are not obliged to take out insurance with or through the same company who issued the mortgage, though they don't go out of their way to inform you of this fact.

By all means shop around and get quotes. In both cases you will need to have the interests of the mortgage company noted on any new policy you take out.

broker2008

Do not cancel one until you have acceptance on a new policy. Timing is important also so you have time to get existing policy released from financial institution to allow you to cancel policy. The onus is on you to cancel. I have seen so so many instances of people thinking they are great in replacing life policy or home policy to find out that they either didn't get a good a deal as they thought they had or they didn't cancel in time before debit went out of their account or they presumed broker or bank had cancelled when in fact they didn't or where financial institution charges a fee to release or replace policy or you have to write and write to get deed of assignment released. I have a client who cancelled their VHI policy to go to another insurer but never cancelled their policy because they thought that unmentioned institution had done so. Over €2,000 lost and they are trying to blame the same unmentioned institution because VHI refuse to refund premiums. Don't rely on a broker to cancel cover because it can go wrong.

O'Prez

Thanx for the info lads. Yeah I had a call-back from 123.ie today and yer man was very informative and told me to thread carefully when cancelling my existing home insurance as there may be hidden fees and I'd have to cancel it myself and all that as pointed out above. But for the sake of argument, what's stopping me from just cancelling my insurances and not getting new ones? Would the mortgage company be any the wiser??

sarahlulu

The mortgage company have their interest noted on both policies, and so will be informed straight away if you cancel the policy.

phormium

TBH I would be more worried about my own interests than the bank, what if you die and have no life insurance, dependants left with debt. What if house burns down, no house but still owe the money to the bank. Unlikely we know but you never know do you?

Nothing wrong with getting the minimum required cover at the cheapest possible price but I would not go without either.

O'Prez

I just wasn't sure what the legalities of it were. Thanx for the heads up. I did some online quotations today and I can get both insurances from new companies for the price of one of the insurances I'm paying now. It'll be interesting to see when I make some cancellation calls to see if they'll match the quotes I was given today to keep me on their books.