If your home insurance policy is up for renewal -  you should always do a comparison with quotes from  other insurers  before you renew with your current insurer – you could save yourself some  money.

We did an online comparison of house insurance prices  for a bungalow in County Mayo  with rebuilding costs of €250k and contents cover of €40k. Cover for accidental damage is included, house has no burglar alarm , 2 smoke alarms and the policy has a €125 excess. The quotes used in the comparison were obtained online from insurance providers and brokers websites on August 17th 2009

123.ie  €345.62 was the lowest quote.

Quotedevil.ie  €354.25
Getcover.com €374.62
Allianz  Direct €376.69
Pibasure  €382.95
Insure.ie  €385  – but  with 250 excess
Zurich  €405.40
Ulster Bank – the renewal quote €416.62
FBD Insurance   €409.97
Chill.ie  quoted €438 for a matching policy
QuoteMe  €472 was the cheapest they could find-  and ithad a 250 excess
Hibernian Aviva   €490.57  was the most expensive quote.

Overall – the difference between the most expensive and the cheapest quote was €145 Euro not an insignificant amount for an hours effort.
We did try some other insurance web sites to compare but there were some problems.

One Direct – their online quote wouldn’t work – just got an error message.
Quinn Direct – the site froze our computer (Using Firefox)
Bestquote.ie – came up with an error message “failed to contact mail server”
Simply Mortgages – no online home quote was possible
Axa – no online quote possible
Tesco Ireland don’t do House Insurance.

A more recent comparison of home insurance prices

The good old Financial Regulator has done another comparison of home insurances premiums in Ireland for August 2008.
As usual – several types of properties and personal circumstances are used to obtain quotes from both brokers and insurance companies direct.
Quinn Direct does best overall in the survey this time – they have the cheapest quote in six out of the nine examples. One of the survey examples – the Quinn Direct home insurance policy was €164 euro a year cheaper than the highest quote from Hibernian. This was for a 5 bedroom bungalow in Tullow, Co. Carlow with ae rebuilding cost of €275,000 and contents worth €110,000.
Allianz came out cheapest in one example – and Zurich had the lowest quote on another . The ninth example was for contents only on a rented apartment – and Quinn Direct gave no quote. The lowest price for contents insurance was from Royal and Sun Alliance through a broker – which at 91 euro was more than 3 times cheaper than AIG Direct.

Tesco were not included in the survey – only 8 insurance providers were involved in the comparison by the Irish Financial Regulator.

Be aware that some insurance companies may not have the same excess on their policies. The excess is the amount you have to pay on any claim. The norm is 125 euro – but some companies have a higher excess such as 500 euro. The policy may be cheaper but you would lose any savings if you had to make a claim.
Also – be aware that sometimes lower prices will be given to new customers. If your home insurance is up for renewal – it pays to check if you can get it cheaper elsewhere. As this survey shows – you could save as much as €164 euro for an hours effort.

Lowest Prices for Home Insurance in Ireland – April 2008

See our most recent house insurance price comparison here

In March 2008 the  Financial Regulator did a comparison survey of Home Insurance . Only the following insurance companies were involved in the survey.

Royal & Sun Alliance ,Quinn Direct ,Eagle Star , Hibernian , Allianz , FBD and AXA

The survey involved comaping quotes for contents and /or buildings insurance for different types of properties in various parts of the country for people of different profiles.
The survey was carried out on a farly small sample – so the results can only be used as a guide. You need to obtain quotes for yourself to ensure you get the best deal.

No single insurer was the cheapest in every case – but Royal and Sun Alliance came out best overall in the survey – coming out the cheapest in half of the samples. The average quote from RSA was 267.5 Euro – compared to the highest average of 353.13 Euro from AXA Insurance.
In one quote for a Guesthouse – there was a difference of 365 euro a year between the best price from Royal Sun Alliance (415) and the worst (Hibernian at 781).
In another example the price from Allianz was almost double that from RSA ( 158 compared to 301). This was for insuring a re-furbished 2 bedroom detached cottage in County Monaghan. The rebuilding cost was €120,000 and the contents were worth €55,000.
The biggest percentage difference was for contents insurance for a 2 bed apartment in Beaumont, Dublin 9. The contents are worth €20,000. Royal Sun Alliance quoted €69 while AXA quoted 153. This is a 55% saving - which could be a lot to a poor student.

Each time the Regulator does a survey on home insurance – they seem to use different profiles and properties. So each time the results are different. This may be intentional – so as to avoid appearing to favour one insurer over another?
In previous surveys Quinn and FBD have done well – but the personal profiles used were not the same .

Summary of results: (using average quote over the 8 samples)
Best : Royal and Sun Alliance
2nd Quinn Direct
3rd Eagle Star
4th Hibernian (did not quote on of the 1 sample)
5th Allianz
6th FBD
7th AXA