House insurance

Bulgarians do have a poor view of their insurance services - largely due to them being owned by shady "businessmen" (many of whom also own the big SOT security companies).  My experience with BG insurance companies is confined to motor insurance on our vehicles - I have no complaints there.  Our properties are insured through Intasure - their service has been excellent.

@grumpyoldbird we're using SDI, as a broker and insure through Bulstrad Vienna Insurance Group.

The insurance covers everything except burglary.  You cannot insure stolen contents  in Bulgaria, so, my advice is put some decent locks on doors and windows!

However the insurance covers, fire, flood damage, wind damage, earthquake, accidental damage etc.   If your home is broken into (the thieves actually get inside your property) they will pay for new locks and door, but nothing else.

    You cannot insure stolen contents  in Bulgaria, so, my advice is put some decent locks on doors and windows! ......

If your home is broken into (the thieves actually get inside your property) they will pay for new locks and door, but nothing else.         -@cyberescue1

Where on earth did you get that from?  Bulgarian insurance companies offer varying levels of cover, some of the cheaper levels exclude theft/burglary but the top levels all cover stolen contents....

@cyberescue1

Have you needed to make a claim? Just wondering if they're any good at actually paying out!

    @cyberescue1
Have you needed to make a claim? Just wondering if they're any good at actually paying out!
   

    -@janemulberry

I can certainly say that Intasure are VERY good at paying out...

I'm glad you've had good experiences with Intasure, Jim. I looked at them when you first suggested them.. Unfortunately they have a slew of recent 1* reviews, many from long term customers saying how poor customer service has become!

The online reviews are biased towards negatives, of course, so I do take that into account. People are far more likely to fire off a review for a bad experience than a good one. So the reviews probably aren't at all representative of the range of customer experiences with the company.

I don't think it's common for insurance companies to be scammers that routinely deny claims. Although I'm sure that it's standard to have a "robust" claims "processing" department. :-)

I suspect there is an economic issue (I'm sure it has a fancy name) that affects the provision of insurance in Bulgaria. It's a small population, and it's not typical that folks have comprehensive car insurance and full property insurance. This makes the insurance relatively rather expensive, which further dissuades folks from taking it out (which makes it more expensive).

Whereas, in the UK, it has a much larger population and both these insurances are pretty standard. Certainly when I lived there I had both. This means a lot more policies to cover a few losses, and it's easier to create a functional no-claims system.

In the UK car insurance market, there's typically very little price difference between fully comprehensive and third party (the legal minimum). Hence, I always got fully comp. In Bulgaria the legal minimum is pretty cheap... and a comprehensive policy is a LOT more expensive. So I have the cheap one, and I "self-insure". If I had brand new Beemers, I might take a different approach, but our three vehicles (2 cars + motorcycle) all came from Ebay years ago.

@janemulberry

I'm not sure that we're talking about the same company here   Since January they seem to have had three 1* reviews, all from prospective clients rather than existing ones, with an overall rating of 4.4/5*

Obviously, I can only go on my own experience and that's so far been 5*.  When our village house was burgled, they paid out several thousand pounds without question, and even called me to point out that I'd omitted several hundred pounds' worth of damage that I could claim for.  I haven't had any claims for quite a few years, and I'm aware that they switched to underwriters in Sweden some years back for their holiday home policies, but Intasure (an insurance broker) is part of the Arthur J. Gallagher group, which also has a 4.6/5* Trustpilot rating.

That's good enough for me!

We always have "Kasko" (the full comprehensive cover) on our vehicles; it's not particularly expensive and has the very useful advantage of extending that fully-comp cover to ANY authorised (by the owner) driver.  For those new to Bulgaria, it's the vehicle that's insured here, not the driver - a very handy arrangement!  Our insurance agent calls us every year to remind us that the insurance will expire soon and brings all the necessary documents and stickers to our home.

While on the subject of vehicles, it's perhaps worth mentioning SBA (Union of Bulgarian Motorists - the equivalent of the UK's AA/RAC et al); membership is pretty cheap and the "Silver +" card (at the princely annual fee of 70 leva) also includes a free ГТП (Годишен Технически Преглед - ie MOT)  Details at sba(dot)bg/membership

Jim, Just wanted to say thank you for your contributions to this forum, a lot of your information I read is very helpful, you as well gwynj.

I'm sure most others who also read your posts are just as happy, that it's always delivered in a clear and easy to understand way.

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's been helpful. It was more house insurance I was enquiring about, in light of the wildfires this year. It sounds as though your experiences have been that the policies are probably not dissimilar to the UK. My experience has been that most insurance companies are reluctant to pay out, so its always important to read the clauses, but I did wonder if there's a clause for Act of God and if wildfires would be categorised as such. 🤔

@grumpyoldbird

You also need to make sure that your policy covers you for damage/total loss as a result of earthquake in this neck of the woods....

@grumpyoldbird we had a payout for a roof destroyed by hailstones the size of golf balls, which would be considered an act of god.

I would say over the years we have broke even

@JimJ @janemulberry We haven't had any claims yet, so I can't speak for whether they would pay out reasonably quickly.  However, Bulstrad / Vienna Group, are recognised to be reliable in Bulgaria and avaliable everywhere, so we went with them.

@roywebb58

Was that in the storms earlier in the summer near VT? The damage looked unbelievably bad! Glad your insurance came good!

@grumpyoldbird

All the Bulgarian ones I looked at covered fire, and didn't have an exclusion for wildfire.  Some didn't offer cover for earthquakes unless you paid more for higher cover. The things not covered were acts of war, property damage from bodged building work, subsidence, and some forms of damage to water pipes. Probably more but those are the ones I recall. Theft and burglary was mentioned earlier in the discussion. Like earthquake, It didn't see that it was specifically excluded, but on the lower priced insurance bands it wasn't covered.

It actually looked clearer about what was and wasn't covered than our UK house insurance policy.

@JimJ well, SDI certainly don't.  Tried to get contents insurance for theft and the flat answer was no we don't do that.

But, may be some companies are starting to insure burglaries.  Which company are you with, that gives you theft cover?

@cyberescue1

I wonder if something was lost in translation when you spoke to them:  they offer their own policies* and policies from a range of BG insurers (SDI are primarily brokers).  Their website clearly lists burglary cover as available with both types of policy: maybe you wanted a large amount of cover - the normal amount covered against burglary in BG is usually derisory?

*They're not really their own, they have a special deal with Bulstrad

@cyberescue1

As I mentioned above, I'm with Intasure.