First thing to say is that at the time of writing Denise is very ill.  The sort of illness that puts families on edge, not knowing what may happen.  That sets a background to what follows below.

We have a gas boiler which is less than two years old.  Up to now, it does what it should do, without fuss or issues.  We have it serviced annually.  But just when you want the boiler, it decides to pack up.  I'd call that an emergency.

We have insurance with Saga and in addition to the standard insurance we added 'Saga Home Emergency: Home and Heating Emergency' cover.  We bought that cover for just this type of incident.  So I phoned Saga.  First thing to note that it isn't Saga that handle the Home Emergency cover, it's a company in Belgium, who then are in partnership with AXA Assistance (UK).   Why is it so complicated?

Saga (or whoever they are) sent out an engineer very promptly.  He identified the fault and said he would order the part (he didn't have it on the van).  I'm cold, Denise is cold, but there's a reason you buy insurance, so all's going to be OK.

No.

Saga phoned later to say that because the boiler was in warranty I should contact the manufacturer and that they wouldn't help.  I don't care about that, it's an emergency.  I've bought Home Emergency cover.  I told Saga that I'd contacted the manufacturer before I phoned Saga (or whoever they are), who told me that the boiler hadn't been registered with them.  It turns out that the installer of the boiler did the registration, but they 'couldn't find it on their system'.  Guess what.  They have now found it on their system, and the sent another man out from a different company to have a look.  He didn't have the parts.  They've been ordered, and when they've been delivered here, I'm to phone the company up and get a date for the parts, that could have been fitted the next day after the boiler went down, to be fitted.  Meanwhile, we still have an emergency here, that I bought extra cover for.  It's rubbish.

So, the boiler still isn't fixed.  I feel cheated, let down and angry.  If there is a lesson to learn from this debacle, examine your policies and ask your insurers ahead of time what exactly does the cover include.  As far as Saga are concerned, I feel we have been let down at a time of vulnerability and crisis.  I won't forget that.

01 April 2026:  The boiler has finally been fixed, but not by Saga's Home Emergency cover.  The boiler has been down for eight days, the same time as it took a dog to be rescued after the 2023 earthquake in Turkey/Syria (i).  I leave it to you to work that one out.  

(i) Wikipedia: 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes