AA Insurance no longer offering rental home insurance - alternatives?

[lissie]

Hi, Just got a call from AA Insurance, apparently they are no longer offering renewals for people with rental properties. So now I need a new insurance company. Any suggestions? I'm just looking for the standard house and landlord chattels insurance. The properties are in Wellington, Lower Hutt, Manawatu -6 in total. Its not urgent, they don't expire until December but I thought I'd ask around. One of the reasons I'd stayed with them is because they offer 12 months cover after a disaster, not just the 6 months that most others seemed to have.

I used to be with Tower but they were totally incapable of keeping their paperwork straight - ie they couldn't get the right premiums associated with the right property. Apart from that I'm fairly agnostic as to which company - though I expect a decent discount for bringing this much business to them.

[King13]

The June issue of Property Investor has an article on insurance cover for rental properties. Has a good comparison table.

[lissie]

Thanks I'll go and check out a copy

[mrsaneperson]

Wonder why AA have adopted that policy?AMI,Tower & State all do rental property cover.I've been ringing around getting a few quotes.Tower seem to be slightly cheaper overall BUT, they UPSELL all their policies to make you pay more. For example full replacement is more expensive than market value ,but they automatically quote "full replacement" unless you ask.Ask for a higher excess too as this will bring the premium down.Tower dont offer the "glass breakage extension" that AMI do.Vero seem to be the most expensive so far.

Basically all my insurance premiums skyrocketed this year by 50%, peeves me off, so i'm "looking around"..

[lissie]

They said their focus is on cars (which I of course knew) and they are still happy to insure our owner occupied home, so I imagine they are just getting a better deal getting out of rentals from their re-insurers. They guy who called sounded really apologetic - but hell its a just a business decision - I wasn't going to get mad over it!

Annoyingly my insurances hadn't gone up that much - I bet I can't match what I was paying with AA. I can't believe anyone would take market value - that's just silly,I always insure for full replacement but up the excess to about $500 and don't bother with the xtras like rental cover for damage from tenants

[Maccachic]

Might pay to do a search on here for Tower, have heard a few people say they have had problems with them and rental insurance.

[drelly]

Tower are shocking... I had a scrap with one of their customer services reps about the answers they automatically insert on the policy documents... such as "Has your tenant got a criminal conviction? No."... It was weird... they lapsed into absolute silence when unable to respond to a logical question like; "If it doesn't mean anything, why is it on there?". It had to be the way they are trained! Very strange... never come across that before. I should go to a broker.

[lissie]

I found Tower was incapable of assigning my payments to the correct policies - they were a nightmare on something so basic, so I lost faith in their ability to do anything complex - like pay a claim.

Why a broker drelly? Surely they just add a % on top for their cut?

[Wayne]

I am with Tower and have had none of those issues. Pay each premium with credit card (more points to me) and they come off the correct one. They ask the questions and I provide the answers - they have never automatically inserted the answers. Fortunately I have never had to make a claim so haven't tested that important side of their business.

[TheLiberalLeft]

"Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream"... etc

That advert is enough to put me off State for ANY insurance. It is State's ad, right? Shows how crap the ad really is, but at least I know it's for insurance!

[drelly]

I am with Tower and have had none of those issues. Pay each premium with credit card (more points to me) and they come off the correct one. They ask the questions and I provide the answers - they have never automatically inserted the answers. Fortunately I have never had to make a claim so haven't tested that important side of their business.

Perhaps it's because I answered the questions once years ago but when I told them to remove them as I didn't know the answers now, they said that wasn't an option!

[ream]

Why a broker drelly? Surely they just add a % on top for their cut?

A policy shouldn't cost you any more going through a broker Lissie. The insurer pays them AFAIK in the same way as the bank pays a mortgage broker.

Having said that, I had to ring Tower for a quote on a potential purchase last week. They were quite keen to know before quoting whether I was going to go through the broker that the current owner used or whether I was going to go direct. So perhaps they WERE going to quote more if it was going to go through the broker?

And as for why...the broker has more clout to get them to get their act together both for everyday stuff (quoting, invoicing) and particularly at claim time.

[Toasty]

I just transferred a 6 flat property to Aon from Vero. Cost dropped from $5,900 to $3,100. My broker checked over the details but couldn't find any reason not to change.

[ream]

Who's the actual insurer then? And were you with an Aon broker before that? Because as I understand it, Aon are only brokers themselves?

[flyernzl]

I did a bit of research for insurance cover in the Auckland market a few months ago.
AMI was markedly the cheapest.