Do many of you insure their larger household appliances such as Freezers, and cookers?
Some of these things can be included on House Contents cover depending on the policy, but if they are not, is it worthwhile insuring them once the guarantee expires, or do you not bother?
I am never sure what to do for the best.
2nd Question - How old is your gas boiler, and how long to you expect it to live for?
Ta muchly.
(Apologies Meg and Mags, please could you move this to the Insurance or Household section? Thanks).
Extended warranties are normally not good value.
E.G a washing machine with a 12 month warranty, you are encouraged to take out an extended warranty to cover it after that.
But don’t forget the protection of the sale of goods act it can be argued that a washing machine should last about 4 years if if mercantable quality.
I would normally fix stuff myself , but we took out a warranty on the dishwasher, cos I hate working on the bloody things, boiler is covered on our house insurance, but we use the guy who installed it ten years ago, I guess it will need replacing soon…
First of all there is no reason why you can’t add appliances to a household policy.
Second question we had our gas boiler replaced when we moved in 5 years ago, also on a British Gas service scheme so it is serviced every year and fixed (not had problems yet) under the policy.
As for washing machines the wife is still working well
I have never taken out extra insurance on anything and over all I think it has worked out for the best. they always try to flog you these things at the time of purchase which I think is totally the wrong time. I always ask them if they expect the product to go wrong after one year, if so, I don’t want it. It shuts them up.
I also repair most things myself or will at least try before buying another.
As for boilers- if you have combi boiler, they are expected to last around 5 years, 10 if you are lucky but is does depend heavily on the make. If you have a Worcester Bosch it will last longer than a Wickes special. If you have a back boiler, it will happily last 25 years or more.
The boiler is the only thing I have serviced, I don’t even service my car unless essential.
Over all, I would say that insurance is not worth it. You would be better off putting the money you would spend on it in a shoe box in case it goes wrong.
I also don’t agree with the British Gas type cover. I once had a customer ring me to say their radiator was leaking heavily. I apologised and said I could not get there for a couple of hours. ‘That’s fine’ said the customer ‘BG said they can’t get here until three days time’
I used to take out insurance on items in the store but found that it’s pointless in the long run. Also, extending a warranty isn’t worth it on things like fridges and washing machines, a bit of a rip-off. They should have a decent life span anyway.
I have cover on my boiler, a Worcester that is now 11 years old. The engineer serviced it a couple of weeks ago and I asked if we would need a new one anytime. He said it was fine. The only problem I had was the water pipes froze up a couple of years ago and it stopped working so I lagged the outlet pipe with sponge insulation and metallic tape and after a few hours it had all defrosted. Not a problem with the boiler at all.
I hear of idiots filling out guarantee forms for kettles and irons. Are they mad? Just throw it away and buy another one!
We bought an American style fridge freezer not long after we got married. The purchase price was a grand. We were happy to pay cash and tried to negotiate on that. No go. The only thing they would move on was the extended warranty which we didn’t want anyway. Almost twenty years later and it is still working just fine.
When we had our kitchen done up, the kitchen fitters suggested we have AEG appliances (except for the washing machine which we’d not long had). They seemed to be good value for money and, going by the brand name, we assumed that they’d be good units.
The other advantage was that they each came with a free 5-year guarantee.
Having used them for several months now, though, I have to say that they’re not as good as the old units we have had for a number of years.
Never mind the guarantee period, I wouldn’t buy AEG again. As I understand it, they used to be a very good German brand, but recently have been taken over by Electrolux and clearly the quality has suffered.
I don’t buy extended warranties. I look at it this way, if I purchased one for all large appliances I own the cost would be considerable, buying good quality goods in the first place I don’t expect them to break down. So best to take my chances using the money I have saved in premiums to cover the cost of any breakdowns.
When I installed my shower (Aqualisa) I forgot to register it for the warranty. Three years later it went wrong so I contacted them not expecting too much but they sent an engineer down to replace the circuit board, all free of charge. I was very impressed.
