Readers' letters: We are victims of the 'Great Insurance Scam'

For how long will we continue to fall victim to the ‘Great Insurance Scam’ and pay vastly inflated premiums based on the hypothetical "re-instatement” values of our dwelling houses?

In most cases these values would never actually cover the brick-by-brick re-instatement of our houses even if we were prepared to wait years for the re-instatement to be carried out. Instead, the truth of the matter is that even if our home was burned to the ground our loss would normally be restricted to its market value which would enable us to purchase a comparable property.

There was a time when nearly all of us insured for market value. How and why has the change occurred?

M Bruce, Edinburgh

Do you think that home insurance offers value for money?

Grievance trick

Keith Brown of the SNP is going around saying that the UK Government is scared of another independence referendum, and that they and the Supreme Court are colluding to do Scotland down.

But Mr Brown, it was not the UK Government that raised the issue, it was your own party, knowing full well what the result would be. The constitution is a reserved matter, hence one can only think that this is yet another plank in the SNP policy of stoking up grievance – an old trick!

William Ballantine, Bo’nes, West Lothian

If the cap fits...

Anti-Scottish self-government parties, which have been thoroughly rejected at every election since 2014, can fairly be described as “democracy deniers” if they cannot provide a route map to honouring the majority will of our Scottish parliament. Also, in any modern democracy, a majority of SNP Scottish MPs elected at the next general election would trigger a referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future.

Following the notorious “Vow” in 2014 the promised near federalism never materialised and following Brexit, that Scotland didn’t vote for, Westminster grabbed many powers previously held by Holyrood.

However, devo max or any other political charade proposed by Gordon Brown will not change Scotland’s relationship with Europe as Keir Starmer has given up on the EU or even the single market or freedom of movement. German Länder have a bigger say in European affairs through the Bundesrat than Scotland ever had as part of the UK.

Flawed UK decisions on the economy, Brexit, Covid and energy policy have trashed Holyrood’s budget, our exports, our NHS plus our agricultural and hospitality industries.

The point of independence is to give us the power to decide on our priorities, to grow our economy, through our vast renewable energy potential, World leading capabilities in life sciences plus our food and drink exports, and match the much higher standard of living enjoyed by Norway, Denmark and Ireland in a fairer, more progressive Scotland.

Fraser Grant, Edinburgh

Lords time warp

Sir Keir Starmer’s apparent wish to do away with the House of Lords is surely a vote-winner

However, the problem will then be coming up with workable ideas for an elected second chamber. A cross-party solution should be found relatively easy. And surely there will be no votes for their unelected Lordships in deciding the future of the existing second chamber. This may even get the interminably boring demands for a second referendum on breaking up the UK out of the headlines

An unelected chamber in the “Mother of Parliaments’’ in A 2022 is clearly time-warped nonsense.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

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