UK Landlord Forum / Life

I have used a Broker for obtaining Insurance all of my properties for several years now. Over the years, I have seen premiums increase, like we all have, and it's always been down to an increase in Insurance Premium Tax or suchlike, but I also started to suspect that the figures coming back weren't too competitive (although they were in the initial days). Last year I asked my Broker to go back to the market and I was provided with some small savings (smaller increases, really).

This year I went onto DirectLine's website and went through their process for one property coming up for renewal. The first thing to understand was that a) their price was cheaper than that provided by my Broker and b) if you get your quote and then upon up an on-line chat with an Agent you can get an even cheaper price if you tell them your situation and maybe say something like "I was just checking that my Broker has got me a good price, and he has, I don't need this quote any more" - they'll then beat the price you tell them you got (!) by £10, or £15 if you have another policy. All they ask you to confirm this is what Insurer provided the quote - and I said something like "Ageas, but it was via my Broker so I don't pay too much attention" and then ask that you filled in the same details for the property - which, of course you did. No more verification is required - no delivery of quotes and suchlike, they just seem to have a pretty wide remit for reducing prices on the fly.

Anyway, so I ended up with a price £61 cheaper than my Broker's original... and when I informed him of this he crapped his pants, to be fair. I also like the DirectLine portal and self-service aspect. I have gone with DirectLine and activated two properties now. My Broker cannot match it. He admitted it. There is value in using the Broker - but times are hard, and I need to make savings in my non-optional costs. It's why I negotiated a 3 year deal for GSCs at £55 each (all done in the same day).

So, onto my subject title... I'm pleased with the way the insurance purchase has gone, time will tell if I ever need to make a claim, but as part of the policy you buy, the DirectLine website allows you to register for access to plenty of online documents - it's a pretty comprehensive archive, to be fair... including AST, Section 21, Section 13, checklists, profitability calculator, reference letter - you select the document, it asks you some questions like name, dates, things like that - and out of the other side comes a document - I just filled in the details for an AST just to read it and print it out.

Sure, it's not as good as my own AST... but I'll get in the hammock later and give it a good read, you never know where good ideas might come from, right?