Swinton Home Insurance Review 2024

Swinton Home Insurance Review 2024

A popular insurance brand with competitive rates most of the time.

Good for

  • Competitive quotes
  • Some products are very robust on features
  • Good customer reviews

Bad for

  • Not all products are highly-rated for features

Editor's Rating

4.0/5.0

The guidance on this site is based on our own analysis and is meant to help you identify options and narrow down your choices. We do not advise or tell you which product to buy; undertake your own due diligence before entering into any agreement. Read our full disclosure here.

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In This Review

Swinton Home Insurance Review: What You Need to Know

Is Swinton home insurance any good? Their customer ratings are quite good, quotes are usually very competitive and their "Premier" product is pretty solid when it comes to features for both buildings and contents—but are they right for you? Here's what you should know before you buy a Swinton home insurance policy.

Swinton Home Insurance Key Facts

  • Three plans to choose from: Essentials, Classic and Premier
  • £500,000 to unlimited cover for buildings
  • £50,000 to £150,000 for contents

Swinton has three plan options called Essentials, Classic and Premier give you a choice of coverage and features, with a buildings limit from £500,000 to unlimited cover and contents cover between £50,000 and £150,000.

What's the difference between Essentials, Classic and Premier plans? Classic offers more coverage features than Essentials; and Premier offers more than Classic. For example, Classic and Premier offer cover for blocked sewer pipes, emergency access, theft from outbuildings, contents in the garden and business equipment. In addition, Premier offers set/suite replacement and student cover.

Accidental Damage is not included as standard on any Swinton plans, but can be purchased for an extra premium. Similarly, Personal Possessions cover is not included but can be added onto a policy for an additional premium to protect against loss of or damage to items like wallets and watches when they are temporarily away from your home.

Swinton Home Insurance Customer Complaints, Reviews and Ratings

Swinton Trustpilot Reviews

According to Trustpilot, Swinton is rated 4.3 stars out of 5 by close to 30,000 customers. That's a lot! 69% of customers reported an "Excellent" experience and 9% a "Bad" experience. While most reviews were positive, of course some customers have complaints. We've scoured through the Swinton house insurance reviews to learn about common complaints, and also to see what people like. Here's a sample of what we found:

"Great cover at the best price."

"Just renewed my home insurance for a second year. Good service, competitive pricing."

"Just bought home insurance price and level of cover is fine but when I printed off my payment confirmation I noticed there was a 'service charge' of £35. I was not aware this charge was included in the costing until I had bought it. It was all done on-line without contacting Swinton directly so it seems a little steep for a 'service charge'."

"Looked everywhere for a reasonable cover and found it at last through Swinton."

"High cancellation charge for cancelling my home insurance."

"Always seemed very efficient, but the prices creep up... When I went on a comparison site I found a policy around 40% cheaper from guess who, yes Swinton."

"We paid our home insurance by direct debit monthly. Our insurance was due for renewal Swintons changed the payments to Close Brothers Finance without telling us, we found out later. When we saw a strange direct debit on our bank online we cancelled it not knowing what it was."

"I have been unable to download Home Insurance Documents... I called on the 7/10/19 0333303590002 after waiting 12.30 I hung up and called again this time 15 minutes before I spoke to a real person. I explained that I had been unable to download my documents and could they please post a copy of the documents, I am still waiting for them to arrive. To add to that I have now received my phone bill and to my horror I find I was charged £2.25 for one call and £2.71for the next."

But it's not all bad. In fact with the majority of customers having an excellent experience with Swinton, we think it's only fair to share some of these as well:

"Really easy and clear instructions online to obtain home insurance."

"The process of taking out a home insurance was smooth and easy. Most important was the competitive quote I had gotten earlier on. I will consider them at time of renewal."

"I have been a customer with Swinton for over 30 years and would rate them very highly. Their service has always been excellent, especially when I recently renewed my home insurance. The customer service adviser I spoke to was extremely helpful and my insurance was renewed in no time at all. Very professional and efficient. I will definitely be using Swinton in future."

Note: like other brokers, it's standard practice for Swinton to charge a service fee for setting up a new policy. It should be expected when dealing with a broker. And cancellation fees are pretty typical at £40 for a home insurance cancellation after the 14-day cooling off period (that said, the £25 cancellation fee during the cooling off period is higher, as some companies don't charge any cancellation fee during that window).

In terms of formal complaints with the Financial Ombudsman, Swinton received 44 new general insurance cases in the second half of 2019, down from 57 new cases in the first half of 2019.

Swinton Home Insurance Price Comparison

We found that Swinton home insurance plans are in line with or even less than market averages, depending on the plan. Those looking for cheap cover may even be able to secure a cheap home insurance quote from Swinton for under £200. To better understand how Swinton prices compare to the market we gathered pricing data. For the purposes of this exercise, we quoted for a 35-year-old policyholder living in a mortgaged, 3-bedroom property in SN11, who had made no claims in the past 5 years.

As you can see, Swinton was quite competitively priced and it frequently cheaper than the average home insurance quote.

chart comparing admiral home insurance premiums costs to market averages
Here's how Swinton home insurance prices compare to market average premiums

Insurance quotes can vary significantly from day to day and according to your individual details, so please just use the following data for educational purposes only; your quotes may reflect a large degree of variation. Additionally, insurance policies across different companies can be difficult to compare directly, as they can vary in terms of excess, cover amounts, etc.

Swinton Home (Buildings and Contents) Insurance Add-On Costs

Here are estimated costs of add-on extras for a mortgaged, owner-occupied, 2-bed property in London when you buy an Swinton buildings & contents home insurance policy. It can be useful to have an idea of the approximate cost of these optional features when you're deciding what cover to buy.

Estimated Costs of Swinton Home Insurance Extras
Legal£29.99
Home Emergency Cover£49.99
chart showing approximate cost of home insurance add ons for Swinton home insurance
How much will you pay for home insurance extras?

Swinton Contents Insurance

Renters can also buy standalone contents insurance from Swinton to cover your personal possessions (your landlord is responsible for the buildings insurance). Swinton contents insurance is available in the same three levels as their combined cover: Essentials, Classic and Premier.

Swinton Home Insurance Notable Exclusions

Swinton home insurance exclusions include (but are not limited to) damage to fences, gates or hedges, loss or damage if you've been away for 60 days or more (occasional visits don't count), damage by pets, subsidence due to foundation not meeting building requirements, faulty workmanship, coastal or river erosion, etc.

A few exclusions stood out to us as particularly mentionable. You may want to keep them in mind if you go with Swinton or as you're comparing different home insurance plans. It's always a good idea to read through the full list of exclusions in the policy documents as we've only mentioned some exclusions here and others may be more relevant to you.

  • 1. Standard building cover doesn't include loss or damage caused by storm to fences and gates.
  • 2. Contents cover doesn't include loss or damage during household removals to breakable items such as china unless packed by a professional or to high risk items like bicycles, jewellery, clocks, sculptures, musical instruments, photographic equipment, etc.
  • 3. Theft of unattended bicycles is excluded unless locked in a building or locked between the frame and a fixed structure.
  • 4. For policies including Personal Possessions cover, theft from a vehicle is only included if the items are concealed in a locked glove compartment, locked luggage compartment or locked boot, with the car and windows all securely locked. (max £1,000)

Swinton Buildings & Contents Insurance: What's Covered?

Swinton home insurance protects against calamities such as fire, explosion, lightning, earthquake, smoke, water freezing in pipes, theft, storm, flood, escaping water and oil, subsidence (depending on cause, etc.), falling trees, branches and radio/TV aerials, theft, etc.

Cover benefitsEssentialsClassicPremier
Buildings£500,000 to Unlimited
Contents£50,000 to £150,000
Alternative accommodation (buildings)£30,000£30,000£75,000
Alternative accommodation (contents)£10,000£10,000£20,000
Replacement locks£500IncludedIncluded
Finding the source of escaping water£5,000£5,000£10,000
Freezer contents£250IncludedIncluded
Blocked sewer pipesx£1,000£1,000
Emergency accessxIncludedIncluded
Theft from outbuildingsx£2,500£5,000
Contents in the gardenx£1,000£2,500
Business equipmentx£5,000£10,000
Set/suite replacementxxIncluded
Student coverxx£5,000
Personal possessionsOptionalOptionalOptional
Legal expensesOptionalOptionalIncluded
Home emergencyOptionalOptionalOptional
Accidental damageOptionalOptionalOptional

FAQs

Swinton home emergency cover costs £49.99 a year. Those opting for Swinton's home emergency cover get up to £500 per call out, which is quite typical (you can sometime find plans offering £1,000 in the market, like M&S Home Insurance). If you don't have heating and a part needs to be ordered following the engineer’s first visit (or if they can't repair the boiler/heating system) you can purchase heaters up to a value of £50 inc VAT or they'll deliver two temporary heaters to your home. Swinton will contribute £250 towards buying a replacement boiler or heating system if they can't make a repair, which is a nice feature and not offered everywhere.

Swinton home insurance policies are undwritten by a panel of insurers, including Ageas, Allianz, Aviva, Axa, Broker Direct, Covea, Geo, Integra, LV, L&G, Modus, Ocaso, Prestige and Pen Underwriting

If you're sure that the Swinton policy offered via a cashback site offers the features you need, then yes why not get some money back on your home insurance. But cheapest isn't always best, and getting some money back today isn't worth it if the policy you buy isn't the best cover for your needs. Do your homework on the policy on cashback offer before buying.

Other Useful Information

Erin Yurday

Erin Yurday is the Founder and Editor of NimbleFins. Prior to NimbleFins, she worked as an investment professional and as the finance expert in Stanford University's Graduate School of Business case writing team. Read more on LinkedIn.

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