House Insurance in Ireland For Burglary Victims

Imagine this: One day, as you arrive home from work and come to your front door, you notice a broken window. When you get inside, you find the whole pace in a dreadful mess, and your computer, your plasma TV, your watches and jewellery, and that cash you thought was well-hidden are all gone. Even your kids bikes are gone.

You've been burgled.

However, like many people in Ireland, you've never made a claim on your house insurance before, but you've always paid up, and paid on time. So you make a claim for €12,000.00 to cover your financial losses. Your insurance provider sends out an assessor, who agrees with the cost of you claim, and a few weeks, later a cheque arrives.

Everything is okay now – or so you think. A few months down the line, your house insurance policy renewal notice comes in the post and, when you open it, you get the shock of your life. Your insurance company – that same one you've diligently paid your premium to for years – now wants to charge you twice what they did last year! Dissatisfied, you call another company for a quotation...but, after learning you made a claim, they don't want to know you. They refuse to provide a quotation at all.

Unfortunately, the above scenario happens all the time. A recent survey by the National Consumer Agency (NCA) found that 6 different insurance companies will refuse to quote for home insurance for a house in Dublin after a €12,000.00 claim was made after a burglary.

In the survey, the NCA sought quotations from a number of companies to insure a 3-bed townhouse in Dublin 6, where the rebuilding cost of the house was €350,000.00 and the contents were valued at €75,000.00. They asked for quotes for the house where there was no previous claim for burglary, and where there was one to the tune of €12,000.00 last year.

Quotations where the house had not been burgled ranged from €422.00 to €782.00. However, where the house had been burgled, 6 insurance companies refused outright to provide any quotation at all. Only two provided a quote, with one wanting €706.00 to insure it, and another demanding an astonishing €1,083.00 for the same house, over €300.00 more than the highest quotation for a "non-burgled" scenario!