Snip!

After about 15 years of having long hair, I have had it cut off. A brave step, I'm sure you'll agree. So far I'm liking my new barnet - it takes seconds to wash and dry now, compared to bloody ages before. And it doesn't blow around in the wind or get in the way. I don't need to brush it either. But it does look odd when I look in the mirror.

Getting this home insurance sorted has turned into a nightmare. Because my previous insurer didn't want to renew, whenever you do a search on the internet you have to click the "Have you ever been refused insurance before" button, which immediately rules you out. And if you lie and say "No", just to get some prices then the number of claims I had ruled me out anyway. Phoning up several insurers did nothing either. Even my bank - who as part of my mortgage terms insist I have insurance - wouldn't cover me, saying that whilst it may be a condition of my mortgage, they are not obligated to provide it.

I finally got a quote from a helpful chap at a broker called Adrian Flux, which comes in at about £100 more for the year than I was paying before. This, in the circumstances, is not too bad and unless the other broker who is supposed to be getting me a quote comes back significantly less, I'll have to take it. Of course, I don't have time to shop around much because the policy renews (or rather, doesn't renew) in a couple of weeks and...

... WE GO TO FLORIDA ON FRIDAY!!!

Can't wait!!!!!!!!!!

Have you made any claims in the past 5 years?

I'm not a happy boy. I received a letter from my home insurance company that said something along the lines of "Because you have dared to actually use the service you were paying for, we have decided you can go stuff yourself because we're not insuring you anymore".

And that presents a problem. Finding insurance is actually quite hard, because I have made 4 claims in 2 and a half years. Thing is though, these are not my fault. This was storm damage, water escape from my shower x2 (if it had been fixed properly in the first place that needn't have happened the second time), and the burglary. It's not like these are caused by my negligence or anything. If this was car insurance and I'd driven into 5 parked cars last year or something then fair enough. But this is just things that have happened to me - I didn't do anything to cause them.

So far I've found a total of 3 places that will insure me. Fortunately one of them is actually cheaper than I'm paying now anyway but I have a bit of a distrust for insurance policies that seem cheap... time to read the small print.

And, typically, the current insurance runs out whilst we are on holiday, so I have under a week to sort it all out.

And, of course, I daren't actually make any claims on my policy now for a couple of years unless my house actually explodes or something, because then I probably wouldn't find anyone to cover me at all. So even if something does happen I'm going to have to pay to fix it myself.

Wonderful.