Hello Falkirk Bairn. Last year I convreted my bank account and accepted a monthly fee. I did this on the basis of the money saved over seperate cover.

We get full world wide family travel cover, no medicals unless you have a very grave condition, and this is until we are 75. Full breakdown/home start cover from RAC. Plus other benefits such as electrical appliance cover, shop discounts etc etc. We also get some interest on credit balances in our account. This is for £10 per month or £120 per annum. We could not get annual travel insurance for that previously. Nationwide is the bank account in question. Not sure what they are like for the other insurance cover you mentioned, but for breakdown and travel it is great value.

Cheers Concrete

Home insurance in our last house was a nightmare, because I felt obliged to declare some longstanding settlement of the property to my current insurer, and this made it impossible to procure insurance from anyone else (unless I went to a specialist).

I was a firefighter for many years and had a couple of prangs whilst driving a fire truck (nobody hurt). I declared these incidents to my own insurer, something which surprised my fellow fire truck drivers, most of whom seemed to think that such incidents should be regarded as seperate to their own private insurance. The correct maxim being, of course, "if in doubt, disclose".

Its only in recent years that I've fully absorbed the valuable lesson that the first quote is a negotiating position and rarely final. The threat of leaving them for someone else is a powerful weapon, unless, of course, you've made a shedload of claims. In which case they'll be only too glad to get rid of you and their renewal prices will make that clear.

I'm with the AA by the skin of my teeth, and I say that because I've called on them about three times in 29 years of membership, and yet each year I have to go through the same tedious routine of challenging the first price they give until they agree to knock it down to the price that they charge new customers. They really shouldn't treat loyal, long term customers with such obvious contempt.

Edited by argybargy on 09/08/2016 at 12:02