Helen Nugent

Inertia means we are paying over the odds for our insurance

I live in a world of Post-it notes. Yellow ones, blue ones, orange ones. They are everywhere. One day someone is going to find my wizened body beneath a mountain of these infernal things. Death by Post-it note.

In a world where multi-tasking has become a full-time profession, the humble Post-it note is now an integral part of modern life. The company which makes them – 3M – amassed sales of $7.4 billion in the first quarter of 2016. The first quarter! (OK, they make other stuff but you see where I’m going with this).

The ubiquity of the Post-it note in my household is such that I’ve instigated a traffic level system for use. Yellow denotes a must-do task, blue means urgent, and orange points to something I have to tackle at some point before I die. Needless to say, shopping around for a new home insurance policy invariably ends up in the orange category.

But I’m not alone in my inertia. New research from MoneySuperMarket shows that a quarter of Brits automatically renew their home insurance policy instead of looking around and saving money. According to the price comparison site, UK homeowners are collectively wasting £37 million a year by allowing their home insurance provider to automatically renew their policy.

What does that mean for an individual in pounds and pence? MoneySuperMarket calculates the typical annual increase is over £9 per policy. But if those homeowners shopped around and switched, they could see savings of up to £59 each – or £243 million collectively.

Kevin Pratt, consumer affairs expert at MoneySuperMarket, said: ‘Insurance companies trick loyal customers into sticking with them – but with higher premiums – through confusing renewal letters and notices, whereas new customers are offered great rates to get them through the door. If this happens year on year, loyal customers can end up paying hundreds of pounds more than they need to.

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