Thinking of starting up my own boiler insurance scheme your input appreciated

[julesverne]

been thinking of setting up my own boiler insurance scheme/plumbing cover scheme for a while and would like to run by you guys first.

was thinking what would be a reasonalbe price etc? and any potential nightmare that i should be aware of. my idea is in it's infancy but trying to build my business and i would only be selling within a small radius.
has anyone any experience of doing this. constructive critisism appreciated.

i see the potential for doing this as you could get all the servicing done when your quiet. i believe a lot of this will be devil in detail of what your offering and how you plan to deliver. if i can get this off the ground i am more than happy to share my experiences in this forum.


all comments welcome.

 

[obseen16]

yep, a company i sub to alot started a care package, only made up of myself and 2 others so a very small company, we got approx 25 customers in the 1st year, then second was about 30, in the end tho we stopped doing it as we had a few to many break down, luckily only made a small loss but for us it was more of a waste of time than anything else, at least we tried it but couldnt really compete with the bigger companies etc. we all knew it was a gamble.

 

[mike_s]

That's why I'm planning to just start by offering a pay monthly option for my services, starting from £4.50 per month for 1 appliance and maybe £3 for each extra appliance. Simple, no worry about having to pay for parts and British Gas actually offer this service from £6.50 if you don't want the parts cover, Main do it for £8.99.

Got the idea since I didn't like to sound desperate for work when I phone to remind about the annual service and once they sign up it stops them from saying "I'll call you back next week" then they just don't bother. Adds value to your business too.

 

[SimonJohns]

You have to have good/great product knowledge

I only insure boilers that I know I'll make money off

I won't insure any BandQ special

Ferroli depends on the model

But £4.50 isn't enough

Will you offer a service once a year for that price?

 

[tamz]

This is really a numbers game and you need big numbers to make it work plus you really need to know your stuff on diagnostics. The big players are also buying parts at vastly reduced prices.

As Obseen said in post 2, on a small scale it only takes 1 or 2 bad faults to kill the profit.
Say you offer cover for a tenner a month including an annual service or check. You get 50 customers signed up @ £10 a month = £6000 a year
If you are lucky, throughout the year there are 30 breakdowns cost of parts ranging from £20 - 250, say an average of £80 = 2.4k on parts plus your time assuming every one is a 1st time fix. Then you still have to throw in an annual service or check.
If you are unlucky 60 breakdowns and average parts costs £200 = 12k.
Most who would sign up would be BG and the likes rejects with neglected systems.

Personally if i were to consider this i would only take on people who had mexico's on gravity systems

 

[julesverne]

I honestly i think this is an untapped market for local plumbers. think if you can get 200 houses on board. at say 12.00 a month thats £24000. a year. schedule all servicing to happen in the summer months when traditionally your quiet. next offer a complete plumbing care package say £20.00 a month that then became 40000 a year. yes parts can be dearer but i believe you would get a feel for what needed with experience. also add on extra's such gas fire cover etc electrical cover my cousins a sparky. i would offer a survey 1st this would help to mitigate any risk because your not going cover a system that is utterly knackered.
playing on local plumber aspect is good also bad is some people's eye's its how you play it. i really do think we could give the big guns a run for there money. effective advertising is the key on this but it can be done i'm sure of it.

 

[julesverne]

i have been gsr 'd for just over a year. and whilst still getting to grips with all the different boilers i've not come across a boiler yet that i haven't been able to fix without the help tech helplines on ones i get stuck on. sometimes it about confidence to take a risk.

 

[mfgs]

Good luck to you if you do try it, it is a big risk. As said before, you really do need alot of people to sign up for it to be worth it. All it takes is a few nasty problems and you could be in trouble. You would also more than likely need a solicitor to draft the contracts etc to make sure you are covered and dont get caught out.

 

[julesverne]

thought of that already. my cousin is a solicitor drawing up a contract for free boiler servicing/breakdowns (result)

 

[mfgs]

Thats handy. Just make sure its all done properly so you only end up covering what you want to and have get outs like British Gas do for badly sludged systems etc.