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Paddy's "Things that cheer you up"


rjw63

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6 minutes ago, Xela said:

Maybe i'm being blasé but never bothered with boiler cover or mobile phone cover. I'd have spent more in cover than the cost of a new one many times over. 

I do have car breakdown cover though, although I get it through work for £3 a month and its through a corporate provider so not available to the general public. As a result the waiting time is about 30 mins max. I've used it twice in 10 years.

Yup, I consider it self-insuring. A grand for 2 years of boiler insurance is absolutely mental. I've never paid for that in the 6 years of owning my house. If the boiler packs in and needs replacing, I'm still well ahead.

It's the same as all insurance though; the average insuree is going to come ahead self-insuring (saving the money they'd pay in insurance and putting it aside) compared to buying insurance which has the insurers overheads and requirement to make a profit.  The average person can cover it themselves for less, the luckier people will never pay a penny, but the unluckiest  might have bigger bills than the insurance costs, so it all comes down to risk appetite really.

I only have insurance when I'm legally required (car) or contractually required (building insurance), I roll the dice on everything else and so far I'm quids in. 

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4 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

the average insuree is going to come ahead self-insuring (saving the money they'd pay in insurance and putting it aside) compared to buying insurance which has the insurers overheads and requirement to make a profit. 

You are right, but we all know 90% of the populace has no ability to put money aside and will just waste it on dreck and when they do need to buy a new boiler/phone, they won't have the money. Insurance works for them. 

Not a problem for misers like us ;) 

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46 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

Good to get that back. £955 sounds a lot for 2 years cover though. Could get a brand new boiler for that much. 

Yeah my boiler was absolutely shit.

I had the cover because I was renting the place out so if there were any problems with the boiler it would be easy to get someone out. And I did have to. A couple of times. I think that's why it was so high! 40 something a month.

If I'd kept the house for this long I@d have replaced it but obviously  I didn't expect to be paying for another 2 years :) 

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1 hour ago, blandy said:

I expect that they'd be on to a loser, because someone else will have taken over the house and be paying for energy, so the evidence will be there that your account for that address ended 2 years ago. But still, nice for it to be so simple.

Yeah that's what I thought and I was ready with proof that I'd sold the place to play the "why would I pay for something at a property I don't live at" card

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20 minutes ago, Xela said:

Maybe i'm being blasé but never bothered with boiler cover or mobile phone cover. I'd have spent more in cover than the cost of a new one many times over. 

Long term you're right. But I got it originally because the boiler broke and I couldn't afford a new one at the time, didn't know how much the repairs would be and didn't know how long I'd have the place so didn't think it was worth a new one. British Gas offered to fix it for free if I signed up to their homecare thing for a year so I did.

Like I said I only had it this long because they failed to cancel it and I'm too shit with bills to notice :)

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As for phone cover that depends on the phone. When I dropped my phone last year and cracked the screen it would have been the price of a new phone to repair it (yes, it's Apple) so the couple of quid a month for insurance on that is well worth it. I don't wantt o fork out for a new phone when I drop my current one a few months into owning it. 

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@Stevo985 As you were renting the place out, then insurance/cover does make more sense as you are at mercy of the tenants and you can never tell how destructive they can be. Hence landlord insurance!

In terms of insurance, I also have travel insurance, but thats a perk of my current account and doesn't cost me anything. Having seen a mate cut an artery in Cambodia, its definitely something worth having! 

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29 minutes ago, Xela said:

Maybe i'm being blasé but never bothered with boiler cover or mobile phone cover.

Not sure about boiler, but I did have phone cover once. Wasn't impressed. It just made it bulkier in my pocket.

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2 minutes ago, BOF said:

Not sure about boiler, but I did have phone cover once. Wasn't impressed. It just made it bulkier in my pocket.

I had a car cover when we were renting.Dont need it now as our house has a garage.

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43 minutes ago, Xela said:

Finally subscribed to Readly. Impressed by the huge selection of magazines. I think @bickster and @mjmooney have praised it previously.

I'm away for a couple of days from later this afternoon so will have a good mooch through it! 

Saved me a small fortune and gives me a much wider range of material

TIP: Subscribe direct with Readly and not through your APP store, you save money and they earn more

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35 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

As for phone cover that depends on the phone. When I dropped my phone last year and cracked the screen it would have been the price of a new phone to repair it (yes, it's Apple) so the couple of quid a month for insurance on that is well worth it. I don't wantt o fork out for a new phone when I drop my current one a few months into owning it. 

I was tempted by getting insurance on my mobile when I first got it due to the cost of replacing and was quoted about £4 a month. 

I decided to just buy a Spigen cover for it for about a tenner. I've dropped it several times, including from a decent height and so far so good. 

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5 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

I was tempted by getting insurance on my mobile when I first got it due to the cost of replacing and was quoted about £4 a month. 

I decided to just buy a Spigen cover for it for about a tenner. I've dropped it several times, including from a decent height and so far so good. 

I've had my current phone well in excess of two years now. I too got a cover (and a screen protector), I've dropped it probably hundreds of times (yes I'm a clumsy get) and when the cover is off, it's immaculate, not a single repair. The cover is much better than insurance. You aren't phoneless whilst its being repaired under insurance because it didn't break in the first place and the cover is far cheaper than the insurance

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1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

Yup, I consider it self-insuring. A grand for 2 years of boiler insurance is absolutely mental. I've never paid for that in the 6 years of owning my house. If the boiler packs in and needs replacing, I'm still well ahead.

It's the same as all insurance though; the average insuree is going to come ahead self-insuring (saving the money they'd pay in insurance and putting it aside) compared to buying insurance which has the insurers overheads and requirement to make a profit.  The average person can cover it themselves for less, the luckier people will never pay a penny, but the unluckiest  might have bigger bills than the insurance costs, so it all comes down to risk appetite really.

I only have insurance when I'm legally required (car) or contractually required (building insurance), I roll the dice on everything else and so far I'm quids in. 

You'd have to be mental not to insure your house even if not contractually required to. 

I mean, the boiler packs in and it's not the end of the world.  Most people can scrape together a couple of grand or take a loan of the need a new boiler.  But your house burns down, that's it. You've lost £100k plus.  Household insurance is pretty cheap. 

I've never and never would take boiler insurance but I wouldn't dream of not insuring my home. 

Fine, self insure small amounts but you have to insure the catastrophe stuff. 

He speaks as an insurance broker 😁

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51 minutes ago, bickster said:

I've had my current phone well in excess of two years now. I too got a cover (and a screen protector), I've dropped it probably hundreds of times (yes I'm a clumsy get) and when the cover is off, it's immaculate, not a single repair. The cover is much better than insurance. You aren't phoneless whilst its being repaired under insurance because it didn't break in the first place and the cover is far cheaper than the insurance

My phone fell out of my pocket when I was mountain biking in the desert and it landed (in it's case and with a screen protector) right on a pointy rock - sort of at the charging socket/home button area of the front of the iphone6. It smashed the screen, which was just about held in place and also rodgered the ability to sync it with a computer ( I later found out). It was my alarm clock, messenger and pub arranger and there was no repair place for 400 miles. I managed to nurse it through the next 6 or 7 weeks till civilisation and then took it to the apple shop, where they gave me a replacement (I'm guessing refurbed one) for 79 quid. That lasted for a few years before going haywire (randomly opening apps and e mail and stuff and starting to type in text, and not responding to any inputs). Anyway, I took that one back to the shop and got a full trade in value even though it misbehaved in the shop. I truthfully told the bloke who assessed it that I'd recently loaded a Beta version of the OS onto it (I did that to see if it fixed the problems - it didn't). So both those things cheered me up. I've never insured a phone or gadget.

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15 minutes ago, sidcow said:

He speaks as an insurance broker 😁

IS it true that if your home is a leasehold, the holder of the lease is responsible for the buildings insurance (and the dweller for contents)?

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1 hour ago, Xela said:

@Stevo985 As you were renting the place out, then insurance/cover does make more sense as you are at mercy of the tenants and you can never tell how destructive they can be. Hence landlord insurance!

In terms of insurance, I also have travel insurance, but thats a perk of my current account and doesn't cost me anything. Having seen a mate cut an artery in Cambodia, its definitely something worth having! 

Yeah a guy I used to work with, his son went to Thailand and fell off a moped and **** his leg up. It was serious but not like massively serious. Anyway between medical bills, flying out to be with him and flying them all back, he spent about 28 grand. All because he didn't have insurance. mental

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1 hour ago, Rds1983 said:

I was tempted by getting insurance on my mobile when I first got it due to the cost of replacing and was quoted about £4 a month. 

I decided to just buy a Spigen cover for it for about a tenner. I've dropped it several times, including from a decent height and so far so good. 

Yep I have a good cover on mine too but the screen still smashed somehow. And these days screens are expensive to replace.

I get the whol just save up for another phone thing, but even if I had the money, if I smashed my screen 2 months into owning a phone I don't exactly just want to go and buy a new one

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