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Thread: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

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    Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    I think its a good deal. Full phone insurance, breakdown and travel insurance, and some other bits, £16/month

    Some people pay that just for phone insurance

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    Re: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    I was with them - it's actually a pretty good deal if you use the offers. I used the mobile insurance, travel insurance ad breakdown cover. It easily paid for itself over a year.
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    Re: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    Yeah, I think if you use them they're pretty decent. Also if you're often in your overdraft they can save you a fair bit too. I personally don't use any of those things so I don't bother with the gold account.

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    Re: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    You can get a year's travel insurance for about £15 in total, basic breakdown cover for about £30 (and probably cashback on top), and mobile phone cover for about £60 per year, assuming it's a smartphone, which is about £100 versus £192 for the account.

    Thing is, if you don't get them all together, you can just pick the elements you want. So for mobile phone cover, I probably wouldn't bother, travel insurance I do, but it's only £15, and breakdown cover... well I don't drive. If you genuinely need them all, and the cover level is appropriate for you on all of them, then it's at the very least convenient - but still probably not the cheapest way to do it.

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    Re: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    Not the cheapest, but I also get the services <ahem> of a personal contact in the bank and a 24hr contact centre dedicated to 'Premier' customers. Really, really useful for me and together with the o/draft worth the cash. YMMV
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    Re: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    Quote Originally Posted by snootyjim View Post
    You can get a year's travel insurance for about £15 in total, basic breakdown cover for about £30 (and probably cashback on top), and mobile phone cover for about £60 per year, assuming it's a smartphone, which is about £100 versus £192 for the account.

    Thing is, if you don't get them all together, you can just pick the elements you want. So for mobile phone cover, I probably wouldn't bother, travel insurance I do, but it's only £15, and breakdown cover... well I don't drive. If you genuinely need them all, and the cover level is appropriate for you on all of them, then it's at the very least convenient - but still probably not the cheapest way to do it.
    I've yet to find a cheaper way to cover myself for various things. Of course, it's going to be situational, but I think you'd be surprised at how competitive some of the deals are now. A few people I know are on it and it was quite a clear cut case when we shopped about.

    Lets take a look at the Natwest Silver account at £120 a year:

    - Insurance for 2 smartphones if a joint account, up to £750 value. To insure our phones with 'Protect your bubble' with loss cover, which is the cheapest I could find, it's a penny shy of 7 quid. Times that by 2 = £14 / month, so £168 a year for just our phones. Already quids in. The quotes from the networks are even more stupid (but nothing new there!)

    That travel insurance a year - does it cover winter sports / extreme sports? All the quotes I see on moneysupermarket and other places seem not to and you need to pay extra - the Natwest one includes everything from SCUBA diving cover to winter sports. Even with that to one side, the insurance for that price really is no frills level stuff. I was in the unlucky situation a few years back where a friend needed medical insurance for a nasty incident. The cost ran into thousands in the end and having a good insurance company made all the difference to how easily it was sorted.

    What companies offer good levels of insurance for that cost? Just taking a gander at the results from moneysupermarket again and googling the companies that are offering ~£20 a year score very badly in reviews across the web.

    The other things I'm not overly fussed about, but there is a clear saving there for me with just these two things. Unless anyone can point out where they're cheaper with the same cover?
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
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    Re: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    Yeah I don't think it's that easy to find good phone insurance ton iPhones for the price

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    Re: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    I've yet to find a cheaper way to cover myself for various things. Of course, it's going to be situational, but I think you'd be surprised at how competitive some of the deals are now. A few people I know are on it and it was quite a clear cut case when we shopped about.

    Lets take a look at the Natwest Silver account at £120 a year:

    - Insurance for 2 smartphones if a joint account, up to £750 value. To insure our phones with 'Protect your bubble' with loss cover, which is the cheapest I could find, it's a penny shy of 7 quid. Times that by 2 = £14 / month, so £168 a year for just our phones. Already quids in. The quotes from the networks are even more stupid (but nothing new there!)

    That travel insurance a year - does it cover winter sports / extreme sports? All the quotes I see on moneysupermarket and other places seem not to and you need to pay extra - the Natwest one includes everything from SCUBA diving cover to winter sports. Even with that to one side, the insurance for that price really is no frills level stuff. I was in the unlucky situation a few years back where a friend needed medical insurance for a nasty incident. The cost ran into thousands in the end and having a good insurance company made all the difference to how easily it was sorted.

    What companies offer good levels of insurance for that cost? Just taking a gander at the results from moneysupermarket again and googling the companies that are offering ~£20 a year score very badly in reviews across the web.

    The other things I'm not overly fussed about, but there is a clear saving there for me with just these two things. Unless anyone can point out where they're cheaper with the same cover?
    The joint account changes things a bit, so fair enough. I was going on phone insurance at circa £4/m, and travel insurance without extra winter sports etc, which I've personally purchased for about £15. I'm not saying it's quality, but it is cover.

    As for phone insurance, personally speaking (due mostly to the way my contract works) it's more cost effective for me not to have it, since I'm unlikely to break my phone regularly enough for the insurance to win out. And that was really the crux of my post - I'm sure if you use it all (so if you've got two smartphones, and value the cover, and need decent quality winter sports cover), then it's a good deal. Most people though only wind up using a couple of the features, and despite it looking like an absolute bargain, if they just insured what they needed (i.e. not paying extra for winter sports, smartphone cover, etc), they'd actually be better off in the end - especially when comparing suppliers, using the best value for money solution for each option, and cashback etc where applicable.

    Not saying it's a bad deal, but neither is it definitively a good deal. Highly dependent on individual circumstances, and that's where this service can sometimes be problematic, if it makes worst-case assumptions for each (i.e. high value phone, skiing around the world and skydiving, etc)

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    Re: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    Quote Originally Posted by Marcos View Post
    I think its a good deal. Full phone insurance, breakdown and travel insurance, and some other bits, £16/month

    Some people pay that just for phone insurance
    Like all these things, it entirely depends on your circumstances, and needs.

    Some people probably do pay £16 for phone insurance. Others (including me) didn't pay that for the phone. In fact, I wouldn't have paid that for three of my phones .... and I'd have got change!

    As you might guess, phone insurance doesn't interest me.

    Oh, and in 20+ years of mobile phone ownership, I've never had one stolen, or lost, or damaged, in a way that would have led to a valid insurance claim.

    Travel insurance? Well, I have a multi-person worldwide annual policy. It suits me, and my usage. So I don't need or want a NatWest. Nonetheless, for months, every time I went into my branch for any reason, like paying a bill, I got a "would you like a review, Sir, our Advantage Platinum policy would suit you?"

    Well, fed up with saying no, and please stop asking me that, I accepted the review. After all, I was bored and happened to gave the spare time. So, the manager (and yes, it was the branch manager) takes me into the office and gives me the spiel.

    Breakdown cover? I showed him my AA card that says "Date joined 1964". Hmm, he says, and moves on. To travel insurance. So I described my travel profile. Their policy didn't cover my needs. Okay, what about mobile phone cover? So I showed him my £5 mobile, and asked him what he thought I was willing to pay to insure it. He grimaced.

    Anyways, to cut a long story short (-ish), havingsoent about an hour for him to work out there's no real benefit to me from the Adv Platinum, and that he'd wasted his time they no longer pester me to take a Platinum account. Idid get a decent cuppa and some quite nice biscuits out of it, though.

    All I would say is that with any of these deals, it's ALL about selling you services. About getting you to pay for a banking service that, for now at least, is free.

    So .... look VERY carefully at what's on offer. For ANY insurance policy, sit downand read the policy carefully, and when you're wide awake. And do it in the mindset of "if I was an insurance company, what could I construe that condition or exception to mean?"

    Always, always, always look not just at what it costs, but what it covers and most emphatically what it excludes. Or, you might find that when you need it, it doesn't cover what you thought it did. This applies to home and contents, to car, to life or medical, to pet, to mobile phone, travel, whatever, insurance.

    It may be that the cover offered suits you, and that it's a good deal. For me, it wasn't.

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    Re: Natwest Advantage Gold (& equivalents), what's your opinion?

    Quote Originally Posted by Phage View Post
    Not the cheapest, but I also get the services <ahem> of a personal contact in the bank and a 24hr contact centre dedicated to 'Premier' customers. Really, really useful for me and together with the o/draft worth the cash. YMMV
    +1 for HSBC Premier.

    Only thing is they do keep suggesting to try their savings and investments things. The same ones that do really badly every year and become re-branded!
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