Car and home insurance - how did you find yours?

[hazelnunhead]

Both my car and home insurance is coming up for renewal ..... and I thought I would look around to compare what I am paying at present to what is avialable.

I wondered if anyone could share any companies / websites they have used.

Our home insurance is through Halifax and is around ?80 pounds a month - does this seem relative to what others pay?

My car insurance is through Quinn, (an Irish company) that will no longer be operating from March so I need to look at this.

We also seem to have a policy for Thames water which relates to plumbing / pipes bursting on the properyt - (I must check this specificaly) but is this something that seems relevant? I think the overall policy is ?80 per annum, but I am wondering if when we received our mortgage this was bundled in!

Any advice or ideas appreciated.

[Dodo1]

Hi

Just renewed my home insurance for a lot less than last year- went through a comparison site.

[etta166]

I'm very lazy and I used a broker called Ellis David. They cost ?20 for the service charge on the renewal, and do all the searching and comparing for you. You just have to tell them the basics of what you are insuring (i.e. rebuild cost, property age/type etc., contents value, specific contents to insure) and they do all the work.

[hazelnunhead]

Etta that sounds interesting, could you pass on the details of your broker? IS this something they do for others or do you have to be an existing client?

[etta166]

http://www.ellisdavid.com/personal-insurance/index.html

As far as I know, anyone can use them. I'm not sure about car insurance, but they do our contents and buildings insurance. I used to manage the freehold of the flats I lived in, so I started using them for that and then just kept on when we moved out to a house.