New House Insurance Demand has risen by 48%!! Is this a new " NORM" with AVIVA

Just got my renewal with Zurich. Up 25%. Even got a text message warning saying the cost of materials has increased dramatically so don't forget to increase the rebuild cost. A cartel .

Shopping around is the only way. Very little rewards for loyalty which I don't understand. Got mine down over €100 with a few clicks.

I know in the past the EU commission has investigated cartel behaviour amongst the insurance companies here.

Zurich jacked up my premium by 25% ... funnily enough, they also increased the rebuilding cost by 25% too, even though SCSI said the costs went up ~12% in the last year. The mafia wouldn't be that brazen! 👀

Spoke to a broker and got a much better deal, but it was still a slight increase on last year.

My renewal from Zurich was up just over 25% on last year. Looked around couldn't find it much cheaper.

Went online to Zurich as a new customer and got quote for same cover but at just below what I paid last year.

Got a call the next day and they reduced that quote by another €20 odd, which needless to say I took.

It's not a cartel. In most cases, your premium is going up because so is the rebuild cost. Insurance companies have no control over the cost of labour and materials.

For several years now, I have tracked the rate (per €1,000 rebuild) I am being quoted by the various companies when I shop around for my renewal.

Here is the lowest rate I was quoted for the past three years. This is the annual premium divided by the rebuild cost in €1,000s ......

2021 71.7c

2022 70.0c

2023 71.2c

Which says that, for a given level of cover, home insurance is not going up in price. If your premium is rising, it's probably because your insurance company has raised the level of cover. But if you get a renewal quote with a higher premium, even though the level of cover is the same or has not increased by the same % as the premium, they're screwing you and you need to shop around.

The insurance busines is between a rock and a hard place here. If they allow their customers to be underinsured through inertia, they're open to the accusation that they are not acting in the best interssts of their customers. But when they collectively adopt a policy of deciding to jack up the level of cover to realistic prices and increase the renewal premium accordingly, they get accused of being a cartel.

I just pointed out that the premium per €1,000 rebuild cost has not risen. So insurance costs are not rising, the cost of building a house has. Significantly in the past few years.

If you don't like the level of cover they're proposing, just ring them and tell them to put it back to where it was before. And live with the risk of being underinsured.

Can you supply a link to even one of these 'reports'?

They already are. The Central Bank advised them they needed to take action to ensure customer did something about it. And so most have brought inflation protection back in by automatically increasing sums insured.........which they actually did 10 year ago anyway!

Would you really place your house insurance with a company that wasn't showing healthy profits?

"Healthy profits"

I direct you to:

"Delivered the strongest underwriting profitability AIG has ever achieved"

Was insurance inherently unsafe before 2022 record profits being made? No.

Insurance is highly regulated like banks with the amount of capital they must hold so that they can pay out and won't over leverage themselves. You do not need a company making massive profits in order to have a secure home (or other) insurance policy.

Operating reserves are funded from revenues not profits. You do not need big profit margins to fund operating reserves.

Was insurance inherently unsafe before 2022 record profits being made? No.

Then the record high profit margins are insurers gouging us to give shareholders a little bit more back.

Increasing operating reserves to meet mandatory requirements is an expense, reported profit margins released in public accounts is net of this.

So when they report on record profitability it already includes any extra money needed to be put into reserve.

Yes, the reports mentioned also outline growth in NIAS.

Allianz:

If you wish to avail of a mortgage which 90+% of FTBs will need, yes you do need insurance.

If you wish to drive or you are in retail you equally need types of insurance required by law. Are insurers entitled to price gouge for something that is a legal requirement in this country?