Best boiler cover plans in the UK compared (August 2026)

Quick answer: Boiler cover in August 2026 starts at £12.95 a month with Hometree and runs past £22 a month for British Gas HomeCare. Your choice of excess moves the price sharply. For an out-of-warranty boiler, Hometree’s any-age cover is the strongest buy. If your boiler is under seven years old, you probably don’t need any of them.

Six firms dominate the market: British Gas, HomeServe, Corgi HomePlan, 24|7 Home Rescue, Hometree and YourRepair. We compared their published pricing and policy documents in August 2026. We haven’t tested their claim handling ourselves, and every figure below is a starting price. Your postcode, boiler age, excess choice and whatever promotion is running that week all change the final number.

What does boiler cover actually get you?

Pay monthly, and when the boiler dies an engineer comes out, with parts and labour included. Most plans throw in an annual service. That’s the deal in one sentence.

The detail is where plans separate. Some cap what they’ll spend per repair, some don’t. Some cover any boiler at any age, while others quietly exclude older units from their replacement promises. And almost all of them sell in tiers: boiler only, boiler plus central heating, then whole-home plans that add plumbing, drains and electrics.

Whether you need cover at all is the first question, and for newer boilers the honest answer is no. We’ve set out that maths in our guide to whether boiler cover is worth it. This piece assumes you’ve decided you want a plan and just want the right one.

How do the six main plans compare?

Three of those numbers deserve a second look. 24|7 Home Rescue’s £8.99 is a 50%-off promotion for the first twelve months, so budget for £17.98 from year two. HomeServe doesn’t publish live prices at all, it quotes each home individually, so treat the £10 figure from Uswitch as a floor, and note its annual service is free in year one only, then £120 a visit. And Corgi HomePlan’s owner agreed in May 2026 to sell the business to Hometree, with completion expected over the summer. The brand stays, but the company behind it is changing.

Hometree makes the clearest promise on age: any gas boiler, regardless of age or make, with unlimited claims and no cap on repair costs. Its free-replacement offer still stops at boilers under seven years old, which is standard across the market.

Which plan suits which home?

• Boiler under 7 years old: skip cover entirely. The manufacturer’s warranty already pays for parts and labour, provided you keep up the annual service.
• Boiler aged 8 to 15: Hometree Your Boiler with a £49 or £60 excess. Cheap enough that one decent repair pays for the year, and no arguments about age.
• Boiler past 15: still Hometree for the cover itself, but be honest about whether repair money is dead money. Our guide to the signs a boiler needs replacing is the place to start.
• You want one company for heating, plumbing and electrics: British Gas HomeCare with its add-ons, or 24|7 Home Rescue’s My Home tier at £14.49 a month on promotion (£28.98 after).
• You hate renewal roulette: YourRepair’s three-year price fix is the only long price promise in the group.

What’s the catch with the cheap plans?

The excess is the quiet lever. A £12.95 Hometree plan with a £95 excess costs £155 a year, but two call-outs add £190, more than the premium itself. If your boiler is at the age where it breaks every winter, a dearer plan with a £0 excess usually works out cheaper. Run the sums both ways before the headline rate wins you over.

Watch the claim windows too. British Gas won’t accept claims in the first 14 days of a new policy, and every insurer in this list excludes pre-existing faults. You can’t sign up on Tuesday for a boiler that died on Monday.

Exclusions do more work than excesses. Sludge and scale damage is the classic: Hometree excludes damage caused by it, and most providers reserve the right to quote for a system flush before covering a sludged-up system. Showers, taps and cosmetic parts sit outside most boiler-only tiers as well. Read the insurance product information document. It’s two pages, and it’s where the refusals live.

When is no cover the right call?

Two situations. First, a boiler still under manufacturer warranty: you’d be paying twice for the same protection, so book a one-off service and keep the paperwork instead. Our boiler warranty guide explains what each brand’s cover already includes.

Second, a boiler on its last legs. Plans repair; they won’t hand you a new boiler once it’s past seven years old. If yours is fifteen-plus and limping, £200-odd a year in premiums is really a deposit on a replacement, which typically runs around £2,500 on our modelled estimate. Boiler cover earns its keep in the middle years: old enough to break, young enough to be worth fixing.

FAQs

Can I get boiler cover on a 20-year-old boiler?

Yes, through Hometree, which covers any age of gas boiler on its standard plans. Others may insist on an inspection first or decline. No provider will replace a boiler that old for free; replacement promises stop at seven years across the market.

Does every plan include the annual service?

Most do, every year. HomeServe is the exception: the service is free in year one, then £120 a visit, per Uswitch’s check. The service matters beyond maintenance, because a missed one can void whatever remains of your manufacturer warranty.

Can I claim as soon as I sign up?

No. British Gas applies a 14-day no-claims window, other providers have similar initial exclusion periods, and pre-existing faults are excluded everywhere. Cover is for the next breakdown, never the current one.