John Lewis Insurance Reviews

Name: John Lewis Insurance
Rating: 1.67

1.7 Rating 426 Reviews

15 %

of reviewers recommend John Lewis Insurance

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1.7

Based on 426 reviews

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Postal Service
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Over A Week
Customer Service	1.2 out of 5

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John Lewis Insurance 1 star review on 31st October 2024

Greyson

John Lewis Insurance 1 star review on 10th June 2021

Stefan Phillips

Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

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“My policy said I had breakdown cover selected so for 3 years I renewed the policy. Then when I needed it I am told "selected" doesn't mean it is selected at all. Oh no, it has to have a tick alongside it. Pity I am not telepathic. A plain English policy? Wholly misleading.”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“I've insured with JL, using their Premier level Buildings and Contents insurance, for 4 years - and have just received my renewal for what would be a 5th year. Each time I have been sent a renewal premium it has increased way beyond inflation, and each time I have called them and they have either reduced it, or shown me a slightly different policy which has kept the premium roughly the same. A couple of years ago i simply went online, reapplied, and got the same policy for nearly £150.00 less than my renewal quote (there was one fairly minor difference, but nothing that should have justified a difference of £150). This year (2018) my combined buildings and contents premium has risen from £618 to £713 and when I called them I was told that "because your buildings premium has gone down by £9.00 that's why the contents premium has increased (by nearly £100). It was obvious the guy didn't know what he was talking about, and when i pressed him he muttered something about "we now have to take the number of bathrooms into consideration". At this point I gave up! At the very least they should provide some explanation on the renewal letter as to why the premium has jumped by so much; on principle I'm not paying a 15% increase when I haven't made a claim, and no other comprehensible reason for the increase has been provided. They did the same with my Pet insurance earlier this year - I saved over £100.00 by insuring elsewhere”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“Chaotic: website payment down. Documents saying the wrong thing. Demanded large increase in premium fore minor modification. Not impressed”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“I wish I’d read reviews on this site rather than going with Which? recommendation to get Home Insurance Cover from John Lewis. We have been let down at every stage by John Lewis and their subcontractors without heating and hot water for more than ten days with repeated failure to do what they promised. Countless times we’ve been assured that someone will call back when it didn’t happen; it took them four days to approve a quote for the necessary boiler part by which time it was the weekend so there were no deliveries and we had to wait even longer. The only reason we even got an engineer booked to come out was by calling to ask for updates only to discover that despite the approval they hadn’t bothered to contact the engineer. When he eventually came he didn’t do what we were told he would ( in the house 30 mins not 5 hours) so I’m not convinced the problem has been effectively solved and we are also still waiting 5 working days (7 including the weekend) for the complaints department to respond to us. Apparently they will call is within three days of the complaint being made. Still waiting! Dreadful service and no sense of urgency despite the cover being called Home Emergency. Don’t buy this insurance”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“It took over 10 weeks to get our kitchen floor repaired after a water leak. John Lewis Home Insurance involved 3 different companies before appointing a loss adjuster, who then used a contractor who appointed a further two companies to fix the floor. Each company had to visit multiples times and photograph the floor before agreeing that it needed replacing. None of the companies communicated properly with us, each other or the loss adjusters. Endless phone calls to chase contracters every step of the way and numerous calls to complain to loss adjusters and to JL had no effect. They really didn’t care. Feel very let down by John Lewis as they seem happy to put their name to such a poor product with abismal service. I would NOT recommend JL home insurance and I’ll be moving my car insurance away from them too. Other family households I have spoken to about our experience have also decided to move away from JL insurance.”

Helpful Report

Posted 6 years ago

“I'm happy with the cover but my renewal premium leapt from £732 to £957 - over 30%. No explanation was provided. I have not claimed in almost 20 years. I contacted JL, waited in a call Queue for 27 minutes and then heard "I can appreciate that" ad nauseum. The first reason cited was IPT - which is only a tuiny factor - they then claimed increased postcode risk and flood events locally. They would not move on price.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“they are expensive and when we make claim they are not very helpful and they make you fell bad.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“John Lewis's well-known trading policy of 'Never Knowingly Undersold' does not apply to any John Lewis branded Financial Services product - this is a direct quote from a Manager in the Customer Complaints department of RSA (Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Co Ltd), who underwrite all John Lewis insurance policies and also market other John Lewis financial products - so beware!”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“The cover reads well, though I have yet to use it. My premium for Premier has just shot up by 30% in a single year from £732 to £957 PA! Having not made a claim on home insurance in 20 years, I don't appreciate being treated like a cash cow. I will be moving my policy as a result.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“After a burglary resulting in damage to doors, loss of bank cards and my car, nearly 5 weeks on and JL Insurance have failed to resolve the problem of the poor service provided by their contractor. I would like to see how many reviews actually relate to claims made not just the satisfaction of taking out insurance that only becomes problematic when you actually make a claim! would not recommend. Certainly not to the standard usually provided by the John Lewis Company!”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“I've had my contents insurance with John Lewis for 5yrs, never made a claim, just received the renewal premium which has increased by £56.71. even taking into account the government tax hike that's a huge increase. I can't even say the service is good last year I had a query over a problem in my bathroom the person I tried to deal with was so rude and I couldn't get an answer as to whether I was covered or not so I just paid for the repair myself. Will be insuring contents with NFU and moving my car insurance too.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“The facts are we have sent off well over a hundred emails to your claims department ... and the complaints department but no one ever responds ... so not the most helpful insurance company to deal with”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“In 4 years I have not been able to access my account on website as the server reports an error (tried from multiple computers on multiple browsers). Customer service says its been a known problem for several years - but only affects some people! Incredible this has not been fixed in this time (this is a business worth hundreds of millions). Maybe this is a scam to encourage interaction via phone, which presumably results in a commission for customer service rep ? I offered to help their tech team fix the problem as that is my profession - no response from JL. If I don't have faith in their basic operations, how can I have faith they will deliver if I ever need to make a claim ?”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“I have full cover home insurance with john Lewis. Recently the fridge of my AEG side by side fridge freezer kept icing up done the back panel. We called John Lewis and an engineer came out and duly said a part would need to be ordered. About a week later he returned with the part and began the repair. A short time later he told me that although he was able to fix the original problem, there was no point in doing so as his testing gadget had revealed a gassing problem which was not repairable so he was recommending a replacement fridge and that we would have to wait for it to go through the insurers. After waiting for some weeks I contacted the company to ask what was happening and was told that an email had been sent regarding the claim. The message had been sent to an email address the I do not use (John Lewis's Greenbee address).He was mumbling something about a cheque but didn't expand when i mentioned the fact that we used another email address so I didn't get the full gist the information. He asked for the email address that I used and i assumed he would resend the message but NO, instead today we have received cheque fo £499 ( cost of the original fridge). My policy states that, "If your product is uneconomical to repair, we will provide you with a replacement of the same make and model. Where the same make and model is not available, the replacement will be of a similar specification", The exact model that we have is no longer available however, it has been superseded by another of the exact dimension and appearance but the bottom shelf arrangement has been modified. Here's the problem though, this current model costs £699. I contacted the insurers but the person I spoke to immediately went into a list of excuses why they wouldn't replace the fridge with said newer version. First he said the point in the policy should have an extra clause added saying .... he didn't actually finish what it should have said. Then he said it was because they can't give us the £699 fridge as it was obviously not of a similar spec'. Our old one is at least 5 yrs old so costs are bound to have increased in that time so I don't see that as a good enough reason to refuse our request. Then he said he couldn't send the extra £200 as I had accepted the £499 - the original person I spoke to had put in his records that I had accepted the offer of £499 so i pointed out that I had not received the offer so no way had I accepted it and furthermore, I was still waiting for the original offer to be resent to my correct email address! Finally I did point out that since it was one half of a side-by-side appliance it was ludicrous not to provide an exact match (If one is available) irrespective of any modifications that the passage of time has accrued in the current model. I would not be recommended this company. With our previous insurers our policy was a like for like replacement policy and this what we were buying into when we changed to John Lewis. Its no good people saying well its not actually John Lewis. Thats just loyalty speaking and I'm as loyal a devotee as the next man but john Lewis should not put their name to services which are at the very least second rate. They should keep a watchful eye on companies that they direct business to, or, stick to what they are good at - never knowingly being undersold! I shall be changing insurers at the renew date.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“John Lewis Home Insurance is administered by RSA who use CET as their supplier for fixing any Home Emergencies. Be warned that CET are a complete shambles of a company to deal with based on our experience. On Monday 8th Jan I called John Lewis (RSA) for assistance with a faulty boiler which had resulted in no hot water or heating for our home. RSA passed this to CET who called me that same day to arrange an engineer for the following day. All fine so far. On Tuesday 9th the engineer came and made his assessment of the requirements to fix the problem and reported that it would need to be approved by RSA then parts etc could be ordered. Still ok at this point. We then had no further communication from CET until Friday 12th at which time they informed me that the repair had been approved by RSA, that parts had been ordered and that we would get a call when the repair could be done. Starting to get frustrating to be cold after 5 days and still no appointment to fix it... The following Thursday I had to call John Lewis (RSA) to make a complaint that we had not heard anything back and were still cold. CET then rung me and siad they could get an engineer to us the following Monday - TWO WEEKS after the incident! In the end we insisted that we use our own trusted service engineer to do the fix (two powerhead valves and a flush) and CET are paying for the job plus providing £100 in compensation. Incidentally, on Monday 8th when we first spoke with John Lewis my service engineer said that the parts could be delivered next day and that he could be available the day after. CET told us that it took from 11th to 15th to get the parts! Having looked online at many plumbing suppliers these are readily available so no idea what CET were doing except trying to cover their own failings... Definitely would not recommend and have transfered to Direct Line Select which also offers a more comprehensive level of cover.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“My father has the Premier level of home insurance with John Lewis, which he renewed in December. He cancelled his emergency cover with British Gas believing he was fully covered by his John Lewis policy. Waking up on Monday morning, my parents who are in their seventies discovered that neither their central heating nor their hot water was working. They phoned the emergency helpline first thing and were told someone would call them back, they missed a call at 1400 (due to being in the attic looking to see if they could find out what was wrong) and my father then spent 35 minutes on hold to the company John Lewis had put him in touch with before being told they might be able to get someone out on Thursday. As it happens, they did get someone out Tuesday morning but he had no idea what to do. He came back on Wednesday and said he thought perhaps a power flush would clear the blockage but he'd have to get back to his head office to get back to the insurers to get back to my parents to tell them if they were covered. On Thursday the John Lewis insurers finally got back to tell my parents that only the boiler was covered so they were on their own. It's now Friday and my father's been in contact with a local plumbing and heating company who have sent someone round to have a look and see if they can fix it. In short, all that having emergency cover from John Lewis has achieved is to delay my seventy-year old plus parents having access to heating and hot water by more than a week in the middle of January. They will have to cover the full cost and, until the local company can get someone booked in, they will have to continue boiling kettles to do the washing up and to wash themselves using buckets and jugs as they don't have an electric shower or an immersion heater. I can't comment on the rest of the policy but the John Lewis emergency cover is worth less than the paper it's written on.”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“They can't handle their call volumes - there are 30 minute+ wait times on their lines which is a very 1990's thing”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“Our central heating boiler stopped working. Called John Lewis who then said they'd transfer us to the team dealing with this. The line went silent and there was no transfer. In the end I killed the call. Nobody called back so I called JL again. After waiting ages on hold I was diverted again and kept waiting several minutes. Eventually CET Home emergencies picked-up. The CET call centre guy was hopeless - he really shouldn't be in a customer-facing role. Now after 2 hours of negligible progress I'm told to wait another 1.5 hours for a call-back from someone who might be able to help. Most unimpressed so far - will update”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“roof damage , water internally, unable to use electrics whilst listening to drips - quoted 1 week for surveyor to assess !!!!!!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

“That's worse experience of my life ever. They staff at their call centre have no knowledge on specifics to do with pay-outs for a claim. Lax attitude with customer empathy and always had to do ring back as you couldn't get through. Cunningham Lindsay acting as loss adjusters couldn't manage a drink up in a brewery. I had to complain about first Claims Manager as they were useless with overseeing and instructing, the second one appointed was better but always talked over you when you were speaking. JSL a building company based in Basildon, that they contracted to do our repair work were useless and rude (we ended up doing the repairs ourselves) after being let down as there was no communication between them and Cunningham Lindsay. The only company that were good were Rainbow International, as they were honest, always in touch and very helpful. I would not recommend JOHN LEWIS HOME Insurance to any one. They have made a very traumatic and stressful time even worse for myself and my family and I will be referring my case to the Ombudsman, as a email complaint to John Lewis was never replied to .....”

Helpful Report

Posted 7 years ago

John Lewis Insurance is rated 1.7 based on 426 reviews