Changing insurance company (buildings and contents). What do I need to double-check?

[catweazle]

Got our insurance renewal and the premium for this year is £350.96.

Seemed high so I went on confused.com and the quotes we got ranged from £170- 250. Went back to our company and they said by reducing the "valuables" cover (TV/cameras etc) to their minimum of £10k the lowest quote they can do is £279.66. They warned us to double check cover offered by the others is the same level.

Mostly seems the same, except our buildings cover is unlimited and the others don't say, plus they all seem to add legal expenses as an extra (but even adding £20 this is still way cheaper).

I'm worried about making a mistake because we've been with the same company now for many years.

Does anyone have any advice please?

DH (who does property insurance claims) says the main thing is that you need to make sure that you have totally adequate sums insured on buildings and contents (so imagine everything in the house going - clothes, towels, toys etc etc), and that you have accidental damage for both buildings and contents.

Not all companies are as good as each other on dealing with claims - for instance, we will be going back to a company that will be more expensive than our current cover but who are fabulous if you have a claim (we only changed as we moved and had to be careful with finances for the first year). Our current is useless - even with the tiny claim we made

Who are you with at the moment ?

Currently with Pearl. We did claim many years ago and weren't impressed with their service but they've always been reasonably priced up to now.