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NATIONWIDE:
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| Nationwide Car & Home Insurance: |
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Name: Nationwide Insurance
Quote Rating:
5.0 out of 5
No. of Reviews: 6
Overview: No self-respecting financial institution can fail to provide a full range of services these days. The Nationwide Building Society is no exception and operates three main business areas: personal financial services, commercial financial services and treasury group operations.
The Nationwide is the UK's second largest mortgage lender and its biggest remaining building society by far, with an estimated £190 billion of assets under management. Its personal financial services business area offers mortgages and loans, online banking, credit cards and savings as well as consumer insurance.
In 2008, LV= (the UK's largest friendly society and previously known as Liverpool Victoria) launched Nationwide Insurance for the building society. This was the start of a six year agreement for LV= to provide and market all Nationwide's travel and motor insurance products. Existing Nationwide insurance customers had their accounts transferred to LV=, which also contracted to handle all customer service calls to Nationwide. It additionally provides some other, but not all, of Nationwide's insurance.
Current Nationwide customers are likely to qualify for a substantial discount if they buy building and content cover together. The society provides the usual range of home, car and travel insurance, with the home insurance getting a five star rating from Defaqto. Holders of the Nationwide FlexAccount might qualify for free travel insurance, however, if they meet account and age eligibility criteria. Since 2008, the Nationwide has offered life and critical illness cover through Legal & General.
Nationwide also offers buy-to-let insurance for property owners, covering both residential and commercial properties. Also available is cover for shop owners as well as office and surgery policies, all provided by LV=. There is also critical illness cover and life insurance that includes mortgage protection and policies for over 55s, all available from Legal & General. The life insurance also gets a five star rating from Defaqto.
Figures provided by the Nationwide in January 2011 showed that property prices continued to fall. Whilst this will mainly affect its mortgage business, there is likely to be a knock on effect on property insurance revenues.
The society's reputation for friendliness and fair treatment, built up by a long-running TV campaign, has been hit recently by a greater emphasis on profitability. A number of branches have been closed and Graham Beale, Nationwide's Chief Executive, said in 2010 that he viewed branch staff as sales people who made a profit by selling insurance and investments. Since these are bought mainly by the more affluent customers, it is thought likely that branches in poorer areas are the most vulnerable to come under threat of closure.
Quick note, though, make sure you hit www.nationwide.co.uk and not www.nationwide.com as the latter is a US company but offering similar services.
Nationwide Public Comments Board:*
Remember, the majority of people that look for places to leave comments, do so because they've had a bad experience and want to vent. We suggest you pay attention for common threads in reviews rather than simply weighing up the percentage of bad ones! ;)
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» Nationwide Insurance Services
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» Nationwide Travel Insurance
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02/06/2008 Gives a summary of the travel insurance plans on the very first page which saves the bother of going any further with the quote if what you want isn't covered. It also makes it really clear what all the excesses are on the different parts of the insurance and these are actually pretty low in comparison to some of the other sites I looked on. You can also look at the more detailed info before you go ahead with the quote as well. Main problem is that the site only offers annual and single trip so it's no good if you're looking for backpacker insurance. Also wouldn't let you insure for more than two people aged between 18 and 64, so no good for families with older kids.
22/05/2008 I found it easy to find the information I needed and they only require the information they need to generate a quote. The insurance section is reasonably clear and I found the summary of home insurance cover easy to read. Good listing of other things you might want to add but the default quote just covered the home insurance. There is a handy listing of current offers and options. Only quibble is the lack of information on how to contact them if you need further information.
12/05/2008 No pet insurance here! Superfast to get a basic contents insurance quote, but then wouldn't tell me what value was covered, so you have to use the long quote version anyway. Really easy to use site map but I don't like the home page suggestions that if you loved your children enough you would buy a life insurance policy - they create a credit crunch and then tell us we're bad parents for not being able to afford anything anymore? Worst though, was that at midday Saturday the car insurance site wasn't working at all - not good.