... My first contact with the Zurich Insurance Company was therefore in a situation where I had a need to claim.
When water is gushing into the basement of your house from an unknown source somewhere inaccessible under concrete, suddenly even the small print of your policy is of interest. ... Read review
Advantages: Efficient settlement of invoices Disadvantages: Overall Quality of service depends heavily on others e.g. brokers
...My first contact with the Zurich Insurance Company was therefore in a situation where I had a need to claim.
When water is gushing into the basement of your house from an unknown source somewhere inaccessible under concrete, suddenly even the small print of your policy is of interest. As the problem was occurring in the water supply between the meter and the main stop cock in the house, would it be covered? I did not find the policy ... ...repair work directly to the Zurich Insurance Company.
I was a little disappointed that I did not receive any acknowledgement of receipt of the estimate, or of the information I had supplied in a covering letter. On enquiring through the call centre after 2 weeks, I was informed that the insurers were “waiting for the invoices” but I had not previously been updated on the progress of my claim.
Contrary to much consumer advice, I meekly accepted the arrangements for house insurance made for me by my mortgage provider. My first contact with the Zurich Insurance Company was therefore in a situation where I had a need to claim.
When water is gushing into the basement of your house from an unknown source somewhere inaccessible under concrete, suddenly even the small print of your policy is of interest. As the problem was occurring in the water supply between the meter and the main stop cock in the house, would it be covered? I did not find the policy easy to interpret.
There were frustrations associated with dealing through an independent call centre. They told me that I needed a plumber to investigate and determine the exact cause of the problem as “the insurers would need to know this before they could process my claim”. Although my policy included access to a network to assist in these circumstances, I was not offered any help in finding a plumber. When they agreed that I should authorize whatever work was necessary to prevent further damage, did they just mean turning the water off at the road?
Through consulting a builder I found out that it would be very costly to excavate and that such work could itself cause irreparable damage; a far wiser and cheaper course of action would be to divert the main water supply. The repair could then be achieved for less than the cost of isolating the cause. Faced with the prospect of no water supply to the house for an indefinite period while mail was sent and assessed by the insurers, I took the risk of allowing work to start immediately. But I was anxious. Would the insurers support my decision? I felt that I was still the one underwriting work of a magnitude I could ill-afford. Surely we have insurance precisely to avoid this situation? The call centre could only provide me with a claim number and tell me to send the estimate for the repair work directly to the Zurich Insurance Company.
I was a little disappointed that I did not receive any acknowledgement of receipt of the estimate, or of the information I had supplied in a covering letter. On enquiring through the call centre after 2 weeks, I was informed that the insurers were “waiting for the invoices” but I had not previously been updated on the progress of my claim.
When I sent the invoices, action was immediate and efficient but by then the work was nearing completion. The Zurich Insurance Company contacted the builder directly for clarification and settled the amount in full within a couple of days. I could not have asked for better service in speedy settlement of my claim at this stage.
According to the Zurich Insurance Company website their preferred method of doing business is through brokers. This makes sense of my experience as they clearly expected me to direct enquiries to my mortgage provider. After my experience I have every confidence in the company’s ability to assess and settle a claim fairly, but the selection of broker is crucial if you anticipate that you will need help and support before the claim is filed as this seems to be fully delegated to brokers or organisations acting as brokers.
I have no experience of the Zurich Insurance Company's wider offerings. I experimented with their website purely for this opinion and could not get parts of it to work although I did manage to obtain a plausible list of local approved brokers through it.
Advantages: None, only being insured Disadvantages: Paying well over the odds, poor service and package
I am disgusted with the price of Zurich building/contents insurance, my mother who is a disabled pensioner, has been paying a fortune for years to Zurich, ever since Alliance and Leicester switched there insurance policy from Eagle Star to Zurich, the cost has just got worse, my mother had no choice at the time.
Being her son, I strongly advised her to switch insurancecompanies.
Zurichinsurance was £667 and the cost of Churchill £223, saved my mother £444.
My mother only claimed once in the 34 years of having her mortgage, in January of this year she made one claim to Zurich for roof repairs, costing a total of £60, my mother paid £50 excess and claimed back £10 from Zurich
With my mother paying well over the odds for house insurance, you would think it would be a Rolls Royce service; it was the opposite, Zurich was totally ...
Advantages: Extremely good cover - more than your average insurer Disadvantages: Might not be the cheapest!
a massive foothold in the market. EagleStar always had a good name for covering car insurance as it was one of the few companies that would insure young drivers. Zurich has continued with this tradition.
Is the cover any good?
Zurich provide a product that covers everything that you need. You may not realise it but a lot of policies that you are being sold may not be all that they seem. You may find that your personal accident benefits have been removed or that new car replacement does not exist. The policy that zurich provide has none of this. You get the full monty! They even throw in a certain amount of breakdown cover that can be topped up for a further fee. Obviously the various policies have variations but you will fine that the startard policy excess is £100 and will only be increased if a young driver is in charge ...
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With the present climate of car insurance premiums rising steeply, I thought that both gave good value for money, especially when compared to the premium give by Daewoo through ZurichInsurancecompany. ...
