Didn’t see a similar thread in search, feel free to merge if one exists.
I’ve just had an email from HSBC about their new ‘Select & Cover’ insurance options. It’s basically everything that people were asking from Monzo Plus in terms of selectable and customisable insurance options. Interestingly they have an ‘excess’ pack to cover insurance excesses you have paid on any other insurance policy from any provider as well as HSBC.
There’s a minimum of 3 packs you can have with a base price of 19.50 a month so it’s not cheap.
What are your thoughts?
For me, whilst the cover is good I’d much rather just have my Nationwide account for their great insurance benefits. Even if I don’t use all of them, if I just selectively purchased cover I’d like / needed from elsewhere I’d soon be spending a lot more.
Bit pricey (but perhaps that’s only when compared to Nationwide’s bundle). Apart from that it looks interesting.
The constraint to always maintain a minimum of 3 types of insurance and only allow one switch within each annual term is perhaps what’s needed to make the pick and mix service viable.
I wouldn’t mind the constraint to always maintain at least 3 types of insurance. However the max 1 switch per term limit is perhaps lower than I’d like.
Are you sure you can switch that freely throughout the year? The HSBC website says
Choose at least 3 options from the list below and switch choices annually as your circumstances change. You can also add and remove 1 option during each year, so long as you maintain a minimum of 3.
Whilst higher cost than the oft mentioned Nationwide package, the flexibility is possibly worth paying that bit extra for. As ever, it’ll come down to those who don’t mind shopping around for the very very best deals, and those who think, well this is easy and suits me better I guess (and who can afford it, obviously).
The very model I originally hoped Plus would become.
The big banks are making big strides, quickly, in the areas they can.
The cover is really good but at that price it’s somewhat unappealing and even more so if you’re locked in.
It always does seem to be more expensive When it’s a pick and mix, Barclays have basically the same thing and that’s fairly expensive too when you have a few of them.
I guess where the sweet spot for this is somewhere that market forces won’t allow it to go.
Give me:
Buildings
Contents
Car
Travel
Gadget (possibly)
In a package like this and how much would I pay a month for the flexibility/convenience? £100pm? £50?
From the HSBC package, personally:
Mobile phone/gadget - these are the same thing essentially, and I am already covered as part of my iPhone package
Home emergency - what is this?
life - will this be the best deal for my circumstances or a more generic offering?
excess protection - a nice to have, not a must for me. I have claimed once on ANY insurance in the past 30 years (and yes, probably just jinxed it)
motor breakdown - already got this for free
travel - again will this be generic and ‘worth my while?’
I’m saying all this in the hope that when Monzo figure out this marketplace approach they give other offerings like this one due attention. There is a lot of good in this for me as a customer, but that all seems stacked on the side of convenience which makes me presume there is a downside (probably cover that has enough wriggle room that makes it almost worthless under some circumstance).
I got an email about HSBC’s new insurance package yesterday. Looks very interesting, and certainly cheaper than Barclays tech and travel packs which are £25 total per month.
I already have free worldwide travel insurance with HSBC, but the phone, gadget and breakdown are of interest.
Nationwide is a popular packaged account. They don’t have gadget cover (so iPads etc aren’t covered) and their breakdown cover is with Britannia (HSBC uses RAC). The concern I had with Britannia is their recovery clause - they’ll only recover you back home if a local garage can’t repair your car by the end of the working day. Not sure if it’s the same with RAC.
Like all insurance it pays to read the small print and shop around to see if it can be found cheaper, or if you really need it at all!
Just had an email from HSBC (a week after I closed my account, BTW) saying that I could now get cash back on my (former) debit card.
I suspect it’s either an error on their part, or they just wanted to rub my nose in it, but it’s an interesting idea nonetheless. Apparently it’s up to £10 per month and it ends in February 2020, but potentially interesting if you have a HSBC current account…
I still have an account solely for the ‘Advance’ extras - Travel insurance, Mobile insurance & vehicle breakdown cover - so I haven’t closed it yet. So far, I haven’t received any email about cashback.
The way I currently use my HSBC account is I receive my salary into it but then the money immediately gets transferred to a few other places (including Monzo). So I have a very low balance almost every day and don’t use my HSBC debit card at all. So I wonder if this a targeted promotion (perhaps to people who transfer significant sums out of HSBC to Monzo and other fintechs instead of using HSBC debit card), rather than a general promotion.
My HSBC story. This happened over 10 years ago when there weren’t many alternatives. Can’t think of a reason to be using them now.
Also, I’m sure we’re talking about HSBC UK here but I just got an email from HSBC Taiwan informing me that many of the online banking features from that account will be unavailable for “essential upgrades”, until April 2020
The worst thing about HSBC is their Digital Secure Key implementation, although hang on, that’s topped by Nationwide wanting you to carry a calculator round with you to generate transaction codes.
Enter the last 4 digits of the account number, your age, the number of the bus that goes by the end of your road and the amount converted into shillings
How on earth do they still not having pending transactions in 2020? When I switched to them for the bonus I thought my account was actually broken, never even questioned that it wasn’t a feature as every other bank I’ve used has them.
