Domestic & General

Who is Domestic & General?

Domestic & General sells appliance protection plans and breakdown insurance covering domestic appliances, consumer electronics, boilers, heating, plumbing and drainage. It has traded since 1912 and now operates across 12 markets worldwide from its base at Swan Court, Worple Road, Wimbledon.

Its role in a repair is administrative rather than practical. When a covered appliance fails, Domestic & General authorises the claim and arranges for an engineer from its approved network to attend. Those engineers are contracted independents, manufacturer service teams and national repair operations, not employees.

The other thing to understand is how the cover is sold. A great deal of it is distributed through manufacturers and retailers, including partnerships the company names publicly with Whirlpool, Sky, Hoover Candy and John Lewis, often branded as the manufacturer’s own plan. If cover was offered by a manufacturer’s customer service team after a guarantee expired, it may well have been a Domestic & General product.

What do the public records show about the company?

Two separate companies sit behind the brand, and which one you are dealing with depends on which product you hold. Insurance policies are provided by Domestic & General Insurance PLC, company number 485850, incorporated on 30 August 1950 and known as Domestic & General Insurance Co Limited until November 1998. Service plans and maintenance and support plans are provided by Domestic & General Services Limited, company number 1970780.

Who owns Domestic & General, and has the Asurion deal completed?

This needs stating carefully, because the position is unresolved. On 2 December 2025, Asurion, the US technology care company, announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to acquire Domestic & General from CVC funds and from Luxinva S.A., an entity wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

The announcement stated that the transaction was expected to close in mid-2026 subject to regulatory approvals, and that the terms were not disclosed. Any purchase price in circulation is therefore press estimate rather than confirmed fact. Acquiring an insurance undertaking requires change in control approval from the regulators, which is not a formality.

When Domestic & General’s corporate news pages were checked on 26 July 2026, no completion announcement had been published. Readers should treat the ownership position as in transition and verify the current position directly. The announcement said that on closing Domestic & General would continue to operate under its own brand as a business unit of Asurion.

For existing customers, a change of ownership does not alter the terms of a policy already in force. Contractual rights sit with the insuring or contracting company, not with its shareholders. What can change over time, after any integration, is service delivery, pricing on renewal and the product range.

Insurance policy or service plan? The distinction matters

Domestic & General sells two legally different things, provided by two different companies, and the paperwork does not always make the difference obvious. This is the single most useful thing for a customer to establish about their own cover.

Insurance policy
Provided by Domestic & General Insurance PLC, which is authorised by the PRA and regulated by the FCA and PRA under register number 202111. This is a regulated insurance contract, and the company states it acts as the underwriter rather than as an intermediary.

Service plan
Provided by Domestic & General Services Limited. A service plan is a contract for services rather than a policy of insurance, and Domestic & General publishes a separate complaints process for service plans from the one that applies to insurance policies.

Check your documents for the company name and, where present, the register number. If you need to complain, the route depends on which product you hold, and the two routes are published separately by the company.

What does an appliance plan cover, and what does it cost?

Taking the washing machine and fridge freezer products as published examples, the cover offered is broad. Domestic & General advertises unlimited repairs with nothing extra to pay for callouts, parts or labour, cover for breakdown and accidental damage, and replacement of the appliance if it cannot be repaired, though installation and delivery costs may apply to a replacement.

The entry requirements are unusually relaxed. The company states the appliance does not need to be new or within its manufacturer’s guarantee, and that proof of purchase is not required. Cover is paid by monthly Direct Debit with no fixed-term contract.

Pricing is not published. Premiums are quoted per appliance after entering its details, so the only way to judge value is to obtain a quote for your own machine. Whitegoods Help does not estimate prices, and readers should be wary of any source that does.

Two further terms are worth locating in your own documents rather than assuming. Domestic & General’s help pages address a maximum value for a repair and a limit on the cost of repairs that can be booked, so a claim limit exists even where repairs are described as unlimited in number. Establish what that limit is before relying on the cover for an expensive appliance.

1. Work out the annual cost. Multiply the monthly premium by twelve, then by the number of years you expect to keep the appliance.
2. Compare it against one repair. Get a fixed-price quote from a repairer for the kind of fault the appliance is likely to develop, using the repair or replace guidance as a starting point.
3. Check what you already have. Statutory rights, the manufacturer’s guarantee and any free five year parts guarantee may already cover the fault at no cost.
4. Read the exclusions and limits. The claim limit, the excess position and the condition of the appliance on joining decide whether the cover will actually pay out.

Who actually carries out the repairs?

Domestic & General does not employ the engineers who attend. It reports a network of more than 8,000 engineers, and the December 2025 acquisition announcement described a growing repair network of more than 25,000 independent engineers. Those figures are not directly comparable and the company has not published a reconciliation, so both are reported here as stated rather than treated as one number.

Its published performance figures for the most recent year are 2.7 million repairs, 79% of appliances fixed on the first visit, a 99% claims approval rate, 86% subscription customer retention and a net promoter score of 61, up from 58. These are company-published figures, correct as displayed in July 2026.

A 99% claims approval rate is a strong number if it holds up, and the first-visit fix rate is respectable for work delivered through contractors. The practical consequence of the contractor model is the familiar one: the quality of your experience depends heavily on which firm is allocated your job, and that varies by area.

Domestic & General also allows repairs to be booked without a plan, so it can be used for one-off paid work as well as claims.

What are the genuine strengths and weaknesses?

The assessment below draws on the company’s published material, the Companies House register and FCA information. It is not based on testing the service.

Is an appliance protection plan worth buying at all?

This is the real question behind most searches that reach this page, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a sales pitch from either direction. Appliance cover is not a scam, and it is not usually good value either. It is a product that transfers a risk you could probably carry yourself, at a price that includes the provider’s costs and margin.

The arithmetic is what matters. A modern washing machine from a mainstream brand will often run for years without a fault, and the most common failures on an out-of-warranty machine are repairable for a fixed sum. Set the monthly premium aside in a savings account instead and, across a household of several appliances, most people finish ahead.

The case for cover is stronger in three situations: where an unexpected bill would genuinely cause hardship, where an appliance is expensive to replace and awkward to live without, and where a household has a track record of heavy use and frequent faults.

Whitegoods Help has looked at the extended warranty question repeatedly, and the conclusions are worth reading before committing to any monthly payment: should you buy a washing machine extended warranty, a reader’s five year extended warranty offer assessed, and the comparison of appliance insurance against subscription schemes. Terms can also carry restrictions that surprise people, as with a warranty clause limiting how much washing you can do.

Who might Domestic & General suit, and who might it not?

Likely a reasonable fit
Households for whom an unexpected repair bill would cause real difficulty and who value predictable monthly outgoings. Owners of older appliances that other providers will not cover, since no proof of purchase or in-guarantee status is required. Anyone who wants a regulated insurer with a verifiable register entry rather than an unregulated warranty. Households with a history of frequent breakdowns across several appliances.

Probably not the right choice
Anyone whose appliance is still in guarantee or within the statutory window against the retailer. Households able to absorb a one-off repair bill, who will usually do better setting the premium aside. Anyone signing up in response to a breakdown that has already happened, given the 90-day excess. Owners of cheap appliances where a few years of premiums would approach replacement cost.

How does a protection plan compare with the alternatives?

The wider question of who to call is covered in the comparison of manufacturer against independent engineers.

Cold calls, renewals and complaints

Appliance cover is sold heavily by telephone and post, both by Domestic & General and by unconnected companies using similar language. Domestic & General publishes guidance on rogue traders and on what to do about a suspicious call, which is a sensible page to read if you receive one.

The company also discloses that its sales agents receive periodic incentives such as bonus payments for meeting quality and sales targets. That is a legitimate arrangement and disclosing it is to the company’s credit, but it is worth remembering during a call that the person on the line has a target.

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  Never give payment details on an unsolicited call. Hang up and ring the number on your own paperwork instead.
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  Check the company name and register number on your documents, then verify it on the Financial Services Register.
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  Establish whether you hold an insurance policy or a service plan, because the complaints route differs.
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  Complain to the company first and in writing. If the answer is unsatisfactory, an insurance complaint can usually go to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free to use.
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  Keep a written record of visits, parts fitted and dates. See what to do when an engineer did not come and claiming compensation from a retailer or repairer.

Diagnosing the fault first

Whether or not an appliance is covered, working out what has gone wrong is worth ten minutes before anyone is called. A surprising proportion of reported faults are blocked filters, tripped safety devices, overloading or user error, and no plan is needed to fix those.

Start with the appliance error codes hub and the pre-repair checks worth doing first. For laundry faults specifically, the washing machine repair guides cover the common failures in detail.

What about spare parts?

Where an appliance is out of cover and the fault is straightforward, fitting the part yourself is an option for the reasonably confident. Correct identification matters more than anything else, and the full model and serial number from the rating plate is what determines which version of a part will fit.

Whitegoods Help maintains guidance on sourcing appliance spare parts, the difference between genuine and pattern parts, and what to check before buying spares.

Frequently asked questions about Domestic & General

Editorial summary

Domestic & General is the established incumbent of UK appliance cover, and on the evidence available it runs a competent operation: a regulated insurer with published performance figures, a claims approval rate it reports at 99%, a first-visit fix rate of 79%, and cover terms that are more generous than much of the market, particularly the willingness to insure older appliances without proof of purchase.

The reservations are about the product category more than the company. Appliance cover asks households to pay a monthly sum to avoid an occasional bill they could usually absorb, and the arithmetic works against most people who buy it. Three specific things deserve attention before signing anything: the £99 excess in the first 90 days on cover started after the guarantee expires, the existence of a maximum repair value behind the phrase “unlimited repairs”, and the fact that the engineer who attends works for a contractor rather than for Domestic & General.

Two structural points also matter. Because much of this cover is sold under manufacturer and retailer branding, a significant number of customers do not know that Domestic & General is their provider, which makes checking your paperwork worthwhile. And with a sale to Asurion agreed but not confirmed as completed, this is a business in transition; existing policy terms are unaffected, but service and pricing on renewal are worth watching over the next couple of years.

For households that value predictable outgoings across several ageing appliances, it is a credible product from a properly regulated provider. For most others, a fixed-price repair when something actually breaks will cost less over the life of the appliance.