Massive insurance hike after claim - is this normal?

[nkf]

Had to claim for damage caused by neigbhours leaking washing machine. Now, the insurance company has doubled the monthly payment and raised the excess. Is this reasonable?

It depends. L&G give a No-Claims discount which goes up year after year, I think it tops at 40%, so (depending on the terms) you would lose that.

Best advice, I think, is to ring around for quotes from other companies. It seems normal in the insurance trade to give a "Loyalty Penalty" where they charge old customers more than new ones. I think this is shocking. When I changed from RBoS to L&G after at least 15 years, I halved my premium. When RBoS offered to try and match it, I was so annoyed they'd been taking advantage of me for years that I refused to have anything to do with them. But from what I hear, it is quite common.

Thank you. Fortunately, my renewal is due very soon so that will put me in a bargaining position.

Time to go elsewhere, they tend to rely on policyholder inertia.

I bet that's it.

It's always best to do a search, pil pay £370 a year for a end of bed terrace with nothing of any worth in it, I did a search for them and got it down to £113.

They wont change though, too scared to.

I'm with L&G. They just remove a years no claim if you claim. When I moved into my current hobbit hole I was with Twatwest. They were going to increase the premium from £200 to £450 I phoned around, L&Gs premium was £125. Shop around.