Our Pricing Explained

We believe in straightforward products and fair prices that remain affordable to our customers. We also believe in offering choices to our new and existing customers with a range of prices.

For example, you could choose a lower cost ‘boiler only’ insurance cover with a £95 excess. This would mean a cheaper monthly premium.

Or, you could choose our most complete cover, Home Care including Boiler Service, with no excess. This would cost more but give more cover, more peace of mind and no excess to pay if you claim.

To keep prices affordable, we carefully manage our costs and have certain policy exclusions which also keep our costs down.

The price of your product, and any change to your price, can be influenced by a few things:• Whether you’ve joined us with an introductory offer or not.

• The type of product that you’ve chosen to meet your needs (the more things that are covered, the higher the price).

• The level of excess that you’ve chosen (the lower the excess, the higher the price).

• If your needs change and you change product during your 12-month contract or at renewal.

• Our costs of providing cover and services to you. Inflation normally means that costs go up rather than down, so you might expect your price to increase as our costs increase.

• Government taxes, such as Insurance Premium Tax and Value Added Tax.

We want to charge you a fair price that is affordable but that also covers our costs.

Our costs include the cost of claims (mostly labour and parts), the cost of boiler services and other costs incurred to operate your product (for example, our systems, people training and development, phone lines, advertising and marketing, product development, property and energy costs).

We aim to also make a fair profit. We reinvest some of this into our systems and processes to continue to deliver for our customers.

We also believe in social responsibility, so we invest in the development of our people and donate to a number of good community causes every year.

When you pay your premium, it gets pooled with other customers’ premiums. If you make a claim, then it will be paid for out of the pool.

We expect a certain number of claims every year, but if there are more claims then the pool must stretch further, and prices may have to increase.

From time to time, we may improve our pricing approach to take account of other factors which could explain that some groups of customers are likely to have higher claims costs than others.

For example, parking and congestion charges may mean it costs more to get to your home in London than other places. Or different boilers may have different reliability, availability or cost of parts.

Be sure to check this article for any updates if our pricing approach changes.

The FCA regulate financial services firms and markets in the UK, aiming to make financial markets work well so that consumers get a fair deal.

Unlike some providers of boiler insurance, heating cover or home care products, we are authorised and regulated by the FCA.We welcome the oversight that the FCA bring to the financial services industry as we believe this is good for customers and delivers a level playing field.

Like other FCA regulated firms, we stick to rules so you can be always sure of a fair price. That doesn’t mean your price will always be the same. For example, introductory offers may expire, the government may change tax rates or the costs of providing a quality service to you may increase.

The latest (2023) FCA regulations introduce a new ‘Consumer Duty’ which mean we and other FCA regulated firms must provide products that:

• meet customer needs,
• have a fair price and good value,
• support customers when needed, and
• are easy to understand.

If you’re shopping around, you might want to check if the products you’re considering are from companies that are FCA authorised.

You will have more protection if you buy from an FCA-regulated firm (for example, complaints handling standards and access to the Financial Ombudsman Service).

We know that we’re not as much of a household name as other providers of boiler insurance, appliance cover or home care products. However, we’d like customers to try us – we’re very proud of our Trust Pilot scores and customer feedback generally.

To help customers give us a try, our products are available on price comparison websites or directly from our own website.

Often, new customers can benefit from introductory offers such as a free first year boiler service or a price discount or both. Especially in Autumn and Winter we’ll promote our products with this type of offer – this is the time that customers are most likely to be considering our products.

We hope that having tried our products and services that you’ll choose to stick with us. We’ll always charge a fair price.

Your first renewal is likely to have a higher price than when you first joined us.

This is because, to give you the chance to try our products and customer service, we will often provide an introductory offer such as a free first year boiler service, price discount or even both. When we invite you to renew for the first time, these introductory offers no longer apply.

It’s also a fact of life that inflation pushes up costs we incur in delivering for our customers, so also means that renewal prices may be higher than your previous price.

We’ll write to you in good time (usually a few weeks) before your renewal date to let you know your new price. It will be a fair price (the FCA rules mean that it must be) but it may be a higher price.

Many companies charge you more to pay monthly. This is because they are, as they see it, providing a loan which you are repaying over the 12 months of your insurance contract. We don’t do this.

To help you budget, we’ll tell you your monthly price and collect it monthly. If you want to pay in full as a single lump sum that’s fine too, but it won’t cost you more to spread payments over 12 months.

It depends on the breakdown or fault. Some things can be fixed with just a phone call or an hour of labour in your home.

We won’t use refurbished or second-hand parts. To complete a quality repair, we’ll always use new parts from manufacturers or approved suppliers.

To give you an idea of the cost of new boiler parts, it can cost between £100 to £900 for a new heat exchanger. A heat exchanger efficiently transfers heat from a liquid or gas to another, without them touching. It’s the clever way that most boilers provide heating and hot water.

It can cost between £100 to £400 for a new printed circuit board (PCB). The PCB in your boiler is the control centre receiving and sending instructions to tell your boiler what to do and when to do it.

All these costs would be on top of call out fee and labour costs. Prices correct as of August 2023.

If you’ve bought one of our insurance policies, subject to policy limits, all these costs would be covered, except any excess you’ve selected when you bought or renewed your policy.

The UK government increased IPT in 2017 from 10% to 12%. Our products, apart from boiler services and Landlords ‘CP12’, are insurance products so this tax pushes up the price of your insurance policy.

IPT was introduced by UK Chancellor Kenneth Clarke to raise tax from insurance policies. It became law in the 1994 Finance Act at a rate of 2.5%. Since then, successive chancellors have increased the rate to its current 12% level (rate correct as of August 2023).

If the government changes the IPT rate, then we will immediately change the price of the insurance elements of your product for the remainder of your contract term.

VAT was introduced in 1973, replacing Purchase Tax when the UK joined the European Economic Community. UK Chancellor Lord Barber set the rate at VAT 10% on most goods and services. The rate has changed over the years, usually going up on most goods and services. The main rate is currently 20% (rate correct as of August 2023).

If you’ve bought a product from us which includes a Boiler Service or a Landlord Gas Safety Inspection (known as a CP12), then the price of these elements of your product includes VAT.

If the government changes the VAT rate, then we will immediately change the price of the insurance elements of your product for the remainder of your contract term.

We will always keep our prices fair, but we do need to cover costs. A big part of our costs is the cost of claims.If the UK suffers a very cold weather event (like the 2018 Beast from the East) or a sustained period of extreme Winter weather (like the Winters of 2009/10 and 2010/11) then our cost of claims may increase, so we might need to put our prices up.

We know that the cost of living can be a challenge. Our most complete products come with no excess to pay. An excess is the amount you’d pay towards each claim. This might be the right choice if you want peace of mind, no unexpected costs and value being able to budget monthly for a fixed cost.

We’d always encourage you to check that you’re paying for what you need and that your insurance policy is right for you. We have different products and excess options to help you choose what’s best for your needs and your budget. Please contact us if you’d like to discuss your options.