To ask if you took out additional appliance protection?

[CoffeeFirstPlease]

For those of you who don't have home insurance (I'm in rented) did you take out additional protection for the product when you bought it? I've recently had to replace my washing machine, fridge freezer and now I need a new cooker.

The cooker was a cheap one that came with the house (temporary accommodation I have permission to just buy my own more practical one) but the fridge freezer and washing machine were less than 5yrs old and 1.5yrs old respectively.

Just wondering if I should take out the additional care plans for them or out source then like domestic and general for eg which is roughly £15 a month.

Thank you all for your replies.

I know a few have mentioned contents insurance I did get a quote but it was £78 a month and I just can't afford to pay that I understand it maybe worth it in the long run but at the moment it's not something I can afford to do.

I did look at d&g I was paying £15 for three items about 2yrs ago but stopped as was too pricey I will see if its any cheaper. I agree that I would expect these appliances to last 5+ yrs given the price of them. I won't take out any extra plans as its usually for the period covered by the warranty anyway.

Oh gawd I did and when I was reviewing bills to look at cutting costs I was spending about £30 a month. I've not cancelled them all.

I had to buy a washing machine recently and decided not to insure. My last one lasted 8 years the cost to insure in that time was double that.

*now

OP may I make a suggestion? I mean this entirely kindly. You are coming across as someone who doesn't yet have a lot of experience of dealing with this sort of financial issue (and you've done exactly the right thing by asking). I strongly suggest you go to moneysavingexpert.com, sign up for the weekly newsletter and read some of the posts on there. There's loads of really helpful people on the forums who'll help you with any specific questions.

Investing some of your time to learn about personal finance is one of the wisest things you can do, and will make a real difference to your life outcomes in the longer term. Good luck! 😊

78 quid a month quote for contents insurance is really really high. UK average is 135 quid a year. Unless you live in a disastrously high crime rate or you're ground floor in a flood zone you should be able to do a lot better than that. Did you go to a comparison website?

PS your contents insurance quote sounds very high. MSE will tell you how to go about getting a reasonable quote and could be a good place to start.

Replaced a washing machine earlier this year, our old one died after 12 years with no problems. The seller was on the phone the same day to set up D&G insurance (3 yr direct debit), but when the machine arrived the manufacturer was offering the same warranty cover for 5 years and for a fixed amount at 30% of what the D&G would have cost. No brainer to cancel the D&G.

I normally wouldn’t register or buy this sort of stuff but I also don’t trust the quality of appliances these days, no matter how reputable the brand and how much research I put in to find it.

I never understand why retailers offer extended warranties. They are effectively saying "our product is rubbish. It is going to break down".
It's terrible marketing.

I took a domestic and general policy out on a dodgey fridge and got a £900 pay out. I didn't actaully replace the fridge. it is still ticking (dripping) along!

I also got sold it on a very expensive range cooker which really surprised me but after a while it transpired that they shouldn't have done this and they dropped the policy very quietly. I noticed this and picked them up on it and got all my money back plus quite a bit more for their ridiculous behavior.

I currently have one policy in place for a dishwasher that is problematic. They have definitely been out at least twice to fix it.

So I am happy enough but I do think that they can be expensive.

No, never bought any of those at all. We "self insure", i.e. just keep our money and buy new appliances when they fail. It works out far cheaper in the long run. Yes, sometimes you're unlucky and something only lasts 2 or 3 years, but the vast majority of appliances last 10+ years (we're still using our original dishwasher, cooker and fridge from when we had our kitchen fitted 20 years ago, and they're just bog standard makes from the likes of Currys & Argos, not Miele, Bosch etc.) But we've gone through 4 or 5 driers in that time!

We have bought them in the past but wouldn't anymore. On the occasion when our washing machine finally broke down and couldn't be repaired, we had to pay all the premiums up to the end of the policy year (not so bad if you're towards the end of it but we were only a couple of months in) and pay a hefty delivery charge as well. When added together it was over half the cost of a new machine.

I agree. I once bought a TV for £200 and they tried to sell me an extended warranty for £80. The guy got quite offended when I said I wasn't having the warranty. I have since always wished I'd been quick enough off the mark to say "well the product is obviously crap if you think I need to spend so much on a warranty".

Since the mid-1980's when I arrived in the UK, as far as I know the standard advice from consumer advisors like Which is never to buy product insurance, as it's always extremely poor value.

Major appliances should last six years, I think, under UK law.

I recently had the screen on my just-under-five-years-old TV replaced, because some of the red pixels had worn out. (Where news channel scrolling text appears.) Admittedly this was covered by Curries five-year warranty on large TVs, but I think it would have been covered by consumer rights anyway. (Just to be sure, I reported it 6 weeks before the warranty ran out.)

I also agree the insurance quote seems very high - we pay about £45 a month for combined buildings and contents and I think we have legal cover in that as well.