Householders reluctant to change home insurance

Many UK homeowners are missing out on possible home insurance savings because they think that moving to another insurer would be complex and inconvenient.

A survey of over 2,000 adults in Britain by Privilege Insurance shows that 42 per cent of the people polled who have home insurance, renewed with their insurer when they last took out a policy.

Only 53 per cent of the people with home insurance looked around for a better deal.

Of the 14 per cent of homeowners with mortgage-linked home insurance, 65 per cent stayed with their mortgage provider, as they thought it was the convenient option.

Ian Parker, managing director of Privilege Insurance said: "Clearly there is still some inertia in the home insurance market, but double-checking the competitiveness of your renewal quote need only take a few minutes and, by not shopping around, consumers are potentially missing out on making significant savings while maintaining the same level of cover".

The insurer also noted that 58 per cent of the homeowners polled who bought protection directly from insurers changed their insurer, whereas only 26 per cent of homeowners with mortgage-linked policies bought alternative deals.

The reason for this, according to Privilege, is that customers can quickly check insurance prices from each major insurer's website.