Woolworths Home and Contents Insurance

After our first year of house insurance the policy was automatically charged at a much higher rate to our expired credit card for the second year. The person that answered my call said this is their "normal" policy and that I could cancel the policy. Still waiting for the $1900 refund after 17 days. I would hate to see how long a claim would take to be paid if you made one. I would suggest that everyone that has a problem that isn't resolved to contact the "Financial Services Ombudsman Australia" to assist them with a resolution.

This policy is not worth the money.

Check PDS , page 14 , clause 10.

Clause 10. Caused by water that has seeped or percolated into your building.

Damage was caused by storm water to our ground floor granny flat two years ago.
I filed a claim and soon after, a hard line assessor arrived.

I was told that I would not be able to claim due to clause 10, water seepage.

The storm water level was 50 mm above the floor level. Storm water had flowed into our home because of a flash flood.

The storm water possibly entered through our brick air vents .

Only after a builder submitted a letter describing what had really happened was a limited claim allowed.

The builder in question was a nominated member of Woollies recommended repair builders.

I guess any further claims would be met with the same distain, so why bother to renew this policy.

We were with Woollies (Hollard Insurance) for 3 years before the claim.

How Woollies home insurance won the Bozo Expert Award 2017 is beyond me.

Woolworths seems like good value for money but in reality they are worthless policies. Like dominos pizza they use an optional pricing model by trying to receive more money for extras others include as standard. Recently was on hold for 40 minutes just to be told my policy didn’t cover my $3099 shower screen because I accidentally broke it myself. What is the point of insurance. Not interested in anything Woolworths has to offer ever again!!

Have been with them for few years, didn't make any claim at all, though the price soar evey year.
This year I requested to cancell my policy after they have charged my Credit Card Automatically, and got the advise that they will refund the funds. Over 2 weeks time, I didn't received any refund, so I send email to reminder them that should be a refund occure, no response. Another 2 weeks passed, I have to ring them to chase my money, then I got the reponse that they couldn't refund my funds as my Credit Card in their system shows it has been expired.
Wondering why they can charg my Credit Card if it has been expired but refund? How comes that I didn't get anyone reply of the reason about why they couldn't do the refund through my email until I ring them? Is that mean if I haven't contact them after I was waiting 15 mins over the phone, I might never know the reason and would never get my money back.
Hard to imaging if I do have any claim, what would they do.

Received an email from Woolworths insurance offering 10% discount for shopping at Woolworths supermarkets.
Scanned the rewards card with the wife's card. "Sorry no discount.
Just another supermarket SCAM.
That's why I DON'T shop at Willie's.

Bad value as the customer service team do not follow up calls or emails. Customer service team reject any request to act on previous requests and say they haven't received calls or emails. Payment for insured items is like finding hens teeth. 5 year policy, still trying to get fully recompensed after 10 months. NOt resolved yet.

I’m brand loyal & Woolworths has always been my preferred supermarket, spending about $650 a month. I became a rewards member, used Caltex to buy my fuel (half owned by Woolworths) & puchased 2 insurance policies in October 2018 - home contents & landlord insurance for my investment property. Recently attempted to make a claim for accidental damage to a leather sofa (first ever claim) & of course my policy didn’t cover it. Seriously? Anyway asked them to review my claim (about $1800), advised them of my loyalty & even offered to increase my policy. Did not care. Got a polite ‘sorry to see you go’. Tore up my rewards & fuel card, cancelled both policies. My opinion, I have no confidence in Woolworths insurance ever honouring a claim. They showed zero loyalty to me. Of course you get what you pay for & I feel lucky that I learnt my lesson on a minor claim.

Do not waste your money, they seem like good value until you need to make a claim and then the nightmare begins. Been waiting weeks just to get damaged items assessed let alone replaced Might as well have no insurance if you are insured with Woolworths, I will never use again and will warn as many people as I can not to go near Woolworths insurance. I will be reporting them to the insurance ombudsman and hope others that have been scammed by this insurance do the same, hopefully someone will report them to a current affair and jolt them into actually providing a service or shutting down. Worth insuring elsewhere and paying a little extra, as believe me if and when you have to make a claim through Woolworths you will regret the day you switched over to them. Oh and be prepared to be on hold for 40mins every time you ring them

Most disappointed. Home and Contents Policy has gone up over $150 a year last 2 years. An increase of $320 for the same amount insured. Left hanging on phone after initial talking to person who left me hanging on phone. He never came back after getting details. Found another insurance company $400 cheaper covering the same house and contents. Need more staff to handle calls. I find it hard to believe that Woolworths would have dealings with this disreputable insurance. I shall spread the word around my friends and neighbours not to have any dealings with them. It is a RIP OFF.

We signed up last year with Woolworths as they were good value for money and a brand we trusted. This year our renewal came through and it had gone up 25%. We’ve never claimed and all we’ve done is been a good customer.

We’ve looked around and we’ve been offered a better rate this year than last year with another big name unsurance provider. When I called Woolworths they confirmed that they offer better rates for first time customers but not for those who are loyal to their brand and want to be a continued eecustomer. They eventually offered me a $100 gift voucher but this would mean I was over $270 out of pocket. As such I’ve cancelled my policy and will never trust any Woolworths business again.

Made a claim online, no one contact me for 2 months. So I called them and every time I spent more then 2 hours in wait. They don’t even have an email address to contact them. When I called to update my credit card detail they answer in a few minute. This insurance is a scam.

12mths ago took out Woolworhs Home Ins. Weeks before renewal sent three emails with no response so 3 days prior called & advised them NOT to take direct debit until emails were answered. Days later Woolworths debited my account but still no reply. Called again & they asked what have we done wrong? Finally an email saying I had 14 days cooling off and that this was "the best quote at present". So I searched online & funnily the exact same inclusions with WOOLWORTHS was $53 cheaper. Called again & their response was yes it will be cheaper online cause you do not have a GSO involved, Moral is that Woolworths DO NOT reward repeat customers so shop online each renewal.

How long does this insurance company think is acceptable to be on hold for. I have been on hold for 1 hour and 32 minutes and counting. Embarrassing, appalling. Reading other reviews this is not uncommon.

Was with them for a year. Tried to make a claim on contents insurance and they rejected it (on grounds that my new insurer were amazed about) and cancelled my policy. I had building with them as well and called to cancel that. 6 months later I receive a bill to renew it. When I called they said I didn't cancel the building and wanted me to believe that when I called, I only asked for my contents to be cancelled (which was already cancelled by them a week before). Not a good experience.

Pros;
Been with them for 3 years. Had to make a claim for a broken water pipe under my vanity that flooded half the house before anyone woke up and realised it was leaking. It took around 3 months before everything was finished and back to normal. I found them to be honest and effective in dealing with my claim and the repairs.

Cons;
The only thing i can fault is that after contacting them on the day of the flooding i was told not to rip out the carpet until the assessor turned up. The problem is that it took 5 hours for the assessor to turn up and it was a hot day and the water soaked all up into the walls and made the damage 3 times worse than it would have been if they had of let me remove the carpet when asked.

No company is perfect but these guys are pretty close :)
I have no problem in recommending their product.

The WORST insurance customer service I have ever dealt with.
House was broken into 3 months ago and I'm still trying to deal with them.
No one gets back to you and when you call after waiting on hold for half an hour and finally speak to someone no one knows what they are doing I've been told several different things by different employees.
Firstly told I only need to provide proof for items over $1,000, then told I need proof for all items, then they send an email listing the types of proof that can be provided for an item including mentioning that photo evidence is sufficient proof and after tracking down photos for the jewelry and items I don't have receipts for and sending them through they tell me I need to go to the shops and ask for receipts for all these items.
Everytime I've phoned them (atleast 10 times) I tell them to update my phone number and email address and they still try contact me on my old number and wrongly spelt email address and wonder why they can't get in contact with me!
An absolute joke of an insurance company and I cannot wait to get a new policy with a different company.

I have been with Woolworths Insurance for 5 years and I have to say that the experience is quite underwhelming.
When I first signed up, the policy was cheaper compared to other insurance companies, charging around $880 for a house under 10 years old. However, the prices increase every year to over $1700 this year. it worked out to be more than a 20% increase per year. So it looks like they make it cheaper initially and increase the prices substantially afterwards, so make sure if you are still with them - check to make sure you are not being ripped off.

Due to it being quite expensive, I decided to make a claim to see if they would help. I did go in with low expectations after reading people's experiences on this site and I was not wrong.

I asked them to fix a panel on the roof, damaged by the recent storms, which would have costed probably a few hundred dollars and they refused. The reason ? it was covering some pre-existing damage that was there before.
Then I said to them, I don't need the old damage to be fixed,I only wanted the panel that was covering them to be fixed and that was damaged by the storm. The person over the phone gave me a weak excuse and still declined the claim.

I know insurance companies try to weasel themselves out of claiming pre-existing damage, structural faults and incident not due to an acute event - But this event was acute and still they find excuses.

I don't know what the other insurance companies are like but I would not recommend Woolworth's insurance to other people.

I have been with Woolworths insurance for 7 months.
Lodged a claim to claim damages caused by bursted /leaking pipe in the bathroom which has caused damage to our carpet also.initial claim was denied ,reason was faulty shower (we never had faulty shower).went to resolution team waited 2 months for the response still got exactly the same answer.They are just making false statements trying to get away without covering damages.worst insurance company,dishonest,worst customer service,would never recommend them to my worst enemy.i will keep fighting going to the ombudsman and media against them.

I am writing this review and I have not been asked to. I have my insurance with Woolworths I had an incident in my home where I had to make a claim, recently my neighbors had a similar incident they have a well known insurance company not Woolworths and the service they have received has been disgusting absolutely appalling . I am very happy I made the correct choice. Thanks Woolworths.

We have home insurance ( well we thought we had!) through "Woolworths " who use this bunch of clowns as their insurance company of preference.
Our claim was lodged in June 2018 it is now November 2018 ! Documents sent to them as Express/ Recorded delivery ......Oh we never received
them!
Numerous phone calls...claim handler is out of the office he will call you back.......it never happens! Countless emails are not acknowledged or responded to.
Home Insurance paid over many years ....and this is the sort of service you get from this band of modern day pirates.
How does one express acute disgust over the handling of this claim. Not to mention the wasted thousands of dollars we have stupidly paid this
poor apology for an insurance company.
Please, please, don't waste your hard earned dollars paying premiums to this lot.....you will receive NOTHING IN RETURN !!!!