I’ve claimed on my FlexPlus mobile insurance about six times over the years - never my phone, mind, always the wife’s or daughter’s! I’ve definitely had my money’s worth. Also had to claim on the travel insurance last time I was in the US - had a payout with a day or two of raising the claim, and they waived the excess because I’d managed to get a discount from the pharmacy! Also used the breakdown cover a couple of times.
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Like lots of others we have Nationwide FlexPlus joint account and I am generally happy with the value. The one fly in the ointment is the travel insurance loading. I’ve a very low risk pre-existing condition and the loading that the Nationwide underwriters put on it is eyewatering. Cheaper to buy an annual Insure and Go policy that doesn’t load it at all.
Being joint for the same price makes a difference. It might’t be worth it if a sole account.
FlexPlus is still worth it in our house because of the number of expensive phones and dodgy cars we run!
My perfect premium account, then:
- Breakdown Cover
- Airport Lounge Access
- Mobile Phone Cover
- No Foreign Currency Loading
- Lost Key/Luggage Tags
- Free Foreign Currency Transfers
- Some kind of Discount Club
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What’s the incentive for the bank?
They bulk buy services that they can then sell at a discount.
You think they get more than half price off on services? 
including the cost of providing and supporting customers with them?
I believe Lloyds/TSB still cover scuba diving up to 30m by default on their packaged accounts. They also have a reasonable list of existing medical conditions that you don’t need to notify them about.
My favourite Premium account is probably HSBC Premier - it’s free if you qualify and comes with free family travel insurance which will be good enough for most.
Then they shouldn’t be surprised if people like me don’t bother them with their ridiculous “premium” offers
I mean, they’re very good value if you use them all; but the model relies on people not using them all: otherwise the cost becomes too great
We all know a business has to make money lol
It reminds me a bit of those companies that used to sell you a phone at £60 per month, and would promise you a £20 per month rebate if you sent a voucher in. The firm(s) doing the reselling knew that if more than 33% of the purchasers did this, they would be making a loss. Or they simply didn’t process the vouchers, and let the company go bust confident that no-one could claim anything from a firm that was bankrupt.
The insurers know statistically how many claims there’ll be, on average, though, and the products are priced accordingly, so it makes money.
The business model isn’t simply “relying on people not using it”.
No, it is exactly that. They’re going “roughly this many will use it and that will be profitable” then they’re going “if double this amount or triple use it, we’re going to lose a lot of money” that’s quite literally hoping the usage isn’t too high
And they use actuarial and historical data to arrive at that. They’ll not be thinking about it in the terms you suggest @Recchan.
We might - they don’t.
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It’s almost like if banks make a ‘profit’ on anything they ‘sell’ then that’s somehow wrong 
I say fairplay to the banks. If they can come up with an appealing product for the customer and subsequently make a profit out of it, then good luck to 'em! I don’t have to have a packaged account with Nationwide, I chose to buy into it. It’s the folks who claim they’ve been ‘missold’ a packaged account that make me slightly angry because the Terms and Conditions of the account are there to see. If the account doesn’t suit one’s circumstances, then don’t buy into it. Or is that all a bit simplistic?
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I’ve just checked their most recent policy terms and conditions and yes, you are absolutely correct. The insurance if anyone wasn’t aware, is provided by AXA.
I’m no longer a Lloyds customer as of a few months back. Their packaged account at £21 is a third more than that of Nationwide. If I were to switch to a Lloyds packaged account and pay the extra 7 quid a month, over 12 months I’d still pay £30 more than buying a standalone specialist dive insurance from DAN, so for me, it isn’t worth it. But good of you to point out the dive depth limit on Lloyds travel insurance. 
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This is a naive approach to business.
It’s fact, the numbers involved don’t matter when the reality is it is indeed praying that the cost per user economics makes sense
Obviously I didn’t literally mean they pick a good number; they clearly ran some numbers and decided a good number based on usage stats
What about the sister brand of Halifax?
They offer a packaged account which looks, on the face of it, to be nearly identical to Lloyds.
If you use Reward Extras and select the £5 per month reward, you get it for £12 per month (effectively).
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I used to have a Halifax current account, I stiffed 'em for the £125 CASS bribe, kept them for a year and buggered off.
I’m trying to reduce the number of accounts I have left, from 3 to 2, though I’ll effectively only end up keeping the Nationwide for the insurance.
I’m quite happy with Starling as things stand, well, more than happy if I’m honest. RBS, as a secondary main account, is also just fine for me. I’m not at all bothered about the extra little ‘rewards’ some of the accounts give. Some of the banks out there, I have absolutely no interest in either, so I’d never bother with HSBC, Barclays, Santander, Virgin as examples.
Just trying to keep things simple.
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I respect that completely, and if you are comfortable with your setup there’s no need to change it necessarily.
As others have said, Nationwide do seem to be pretty good value if you are talking about joint coverage for a couple, so even with the changes to diving it may not be worth it to change.
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Nationwide will now always be under revision as far as the travel insurance goes. If Covid alters the way the insurance industry do their calculations for the next few years, we may end up shopping around.
There’s also the possibility that as me and the Wife get older, we’ll go down to just one car as well. In all honesty, I don’t actually need a car anymore, it’s just a nice to have thing, but it’s doing no miles and I’ve gone into semi permanent retirement anyway, even at the grand old age of 53
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