A purchasing guide: what happens when I enquire online?

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This guide is written to teach prospects and customers about the Jewellery, Non-Standard & High-Value Home Insurance purchasing journey. We address how long an enquiry takes, why we ask for specific information, what causes us to gain prior commitment, and how much time you need to budget.

Stage 1: A Discussion with you (Steps 1 to 3)

Step 1: Make an Enquiry

We embrace each insurance enquiry the standard home insurance market cannot handle. If the ‘computer says no’, Stanhope aims to say yes. When searching for specialist insurance, you’ll land on a Stanhope landing page which asks you to get a quote in one of two ways:

• Complete an online quote form and wait for a callback or
• Give us a call on 01730 777600

Once your enquiry has been received, a private client insurance advisor will call you as soon as possible. If you enquire between 08.30 am and 6.00 pm Monday to Friday, we’ll aim to call you within minutes of receiving the enquiry (subject to staffing and demand levels). If you want to jump the queue, call us at 01730 777600.

Step 2: Gather the risk information

We always hope to gather your risk information over the telephone in one call, as this allows us to understand your risk fully. If you are unavailable to talk, you can complete a household proposal form and email it to contact@stanhopeinsurance.co.uk. We’ll get in touch upon receipt, ensuring we understand your requirements.

We must understand your risk objectively and subjectively. The story behind what you want to insure (IE, the intent of your insurance request) is as important as the risk information itself. Our private client insurance advisors are trained to ask the right questions to ensure we offer a first-class service.

Step 3: Summary, prior commitment & call back

Summary of your requirements – understanding the problem

At the end of gathering your risk information, we summarise what we believe is essential to you and what you’re ideally looking for (IE what the problem is you’re looking to solve). Granted, every prospect hopes for a premium saving, but we know this is not on an at-all-costs basis. Experience teaches that whilst you might be looking to save money, you don’t want to downgrade your insurance product or have unwanted endorsements (for example, installing a central station alarm endorsement).

This is a crucial step in the process to ensure we’re aligned. It is essential we find your problem before trying to solve it. If you believe we have not understood your problem correctly, then it’s vital you put us straight.

A willingness to change providers – prior commitment from you

In a kind and conscientious way we request prior commitment before agreeing a call-back time and going to market. It can take a private client advisor many hours to source a solution. It is, therefore, important we gain some commitment before doing this.

We’re not looking for 100% commitment (that would be unrealistic); instead, we’re looking for a willingness to switch providers should we find the right solution for you. If you’re not willing to switch providers (IE, you are just using us as a price comparison to drive down the premium of your existing insurance provider because you want to stay with them), we respectfully request you use our cost indicator instead.

Agreeing on a call-back time

We agree on a time to present the solution(s), and we’ll eventually source it for you. We hope to do this as soon as possible, and depending on the nature of the enquiry, we can do the same day.

To help budget your time steps 1 to 3 of the process usually take:

• 5-10 minutes for single stand-alone risk
• 10-15 minutes for household risks
• 15-20 minutes for renovation projects
• 20 minutes + for thatch enquiries / other unusual risks.

Knowing our clients are time-poor, we aim to be as efficient as possible without compromising the questioning quality.

Stage 2: Solution finding & arranging cover (Steps 4 to 6)

Step 4: Stanhope approach the market

Once we put the phone down, the sleeves are rolled up a little further. Part of our value is knowing which market will be right for you based on the information supplied. To help solve our problems, we split our products into panels.

We must understand your insurance budget, as this helps the problem-solving process. Here’s a snapshot of our panel breakdown:

We always look to offer you multiple solutions when we can. Usually, options are from different panels. For example, a gold panel product option could be £200 more in premium, but the product’s quality and endorsements are more attractive than a product from the silver panel.

Step 5: Present the solution(s)

Once confident in the solution(s) sourced, we will call you back to present the option(s). Like two people sitting on the same side of the table, we tailor the presentation and take our time to work through, in dialogue fashion, the following:

• Gratitude: we always take a moment to thank you for the opportunity. We take no prospect or client for granted.
• Product certainty: We explain why we have selected the product(s) from our panel and include some info about the insurer, underwriter, or MGA. We also include two aspects of the product that make it a good fit.
• Sums insured reminder: we confirm we have the correct sums insured for buildings, contents, valuables, art, antiques and anything else
• Excess: we explain the product excesses
• Endorsements: we explain each endorsement on the policy (if applicable)
• Added extras: we outline the extras included in the product and whether they cost extra (legal expenses, home emergency, etc)
• Effective date: we confirm the start date of the policy
• Premium: we explain the total premium, including insurance premium tax and our fees

Subject to the above being clear and you’re satisfied, we then arrange the cover for you.

Step 6: Arrange cover & issue documents

We can trade over the telephone, but to do so, contract certainty must be established (see step 5). After we get a yes from you to proceed, we then read:

• Your cancellation rights
• How to make a claim
• A summary disclosure statement

That’s it! We thank you again for your business, arrange payment and let you go. Documents will follow by email within 30 minutes (sometimes they can take longer).

Steps 4 to 6 can take anywhere from 2 minutes plus, as it all depends on the complexity of the presentation.