What is a boiler service plan?

What a boiler service plan actually is

The name trips people up because it describes two different jobs bundled into one monthly amount. The service half is the yearly check-over of the appliance. The plan half is the breakdown cover that pays for the repair when something fails. Some providers sell only the service. Some sell only the breakdown cover and call it cover rather than a service plan. Plenty sell both together, which is where the phrase comes from.

What you are buying is access to repairs rather than a payout. Parts and labour on a covered breakdown are paid for by the plan up to a yearly cover limit, and the engineer visit is arranged for you. Above that limit, and outside the exclusions, the cost is yours.

Smart Plan is a service plan, not insurance. It is modular, so you pick the parts of your home you want looked after and pay for those only. It comes from UK Boiler Company Ltd, trading since 2014.

Last updated: August 2026.

The short version

Five things that hold true of almost every boiler service plan sold in the UK.

• It is a membership you draw on, not a financial product you claim against. You report a fault and the repair gets arranged.
• It is not a manufacturer warranty. A warranty covers faults in the boiler itself; a plan covers breakdowns more broadly, inside its own limits and exclusions.
• It is capped, and the cap is one of the biggest differences between providers.
• It usually involves the annual service. HSE strongly advises that gas appliances are serviced at least annually by a Gas Safe registered engineer.
• It is not a landlord gas safety check. The CP12 is a separate legal duty under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998.

Service plan, warranty or insurance: which is which?

These three get used interchangeably in adverts and they are genuinely different products. The quickest way to tell them apart is to ask what each one is built to do. Our boiler cover vs boiler insurance page shows where the two do not overlap, and it is linked at the end of this page.

What is a manufacturer warranty?

This comes with the boiler and covers the appliance itself. Ideal Heating is explicit that a warranty “only covers manufacturing issues with the appliances” and that radiator or pipework problems go back to your installer. Warranties also carry conditions: Worcester Bosch's guarantee terms state that “the Product must be serviced annually by Bosch or any other competent and officially certified engineer”.

What is an insurance policy?

Insurance is a regulated financial product, and a service plan is not one. You submit a claim, it is assessed against the policy terms, and it pays out towards a covered event up to whatever limit the policy sets.

What is a service plan?

A service plan sits between the two. It is a membership, so there is no claim to submit and no cash payout: you report the fault and the engineer visit is organised. The fault is still checked against the exclusions, and on Smart Plan that check happens once the engineer is with you, so if it falls outside cover a £95 call-out fee applies (cover_plan_t&cs.pdf, general terms, item 2). Because it is not insurance, it does not carry insurance-style protections, and any honest provider will say so plainly.

How do a warranty, a service plan and insurance differ?

What a boiler service plan normally includes

The centre of any service plan is the same: a breakdown on the covered system is diagnosed and repaired, with parts and labour paid for by the plan rather than by you, up to the yearly limit.

The annual service is the other half of the name, and it is worth more than it looks. Vaillant's guidance is that “boiler servicing should be carried out once a year to keep your system running safely and efficiently”, and that “most manufacturer guarantees require an annual boiler service”. Miss it for a few years and the guarantee you were relying on can lapse on a technicality. Vaillant puts a standalone service at between £70 and £160 depending on how it is booked and where you live, as published in August 2026.

On Smart Plan, the boiler and central heating module covers repairs with parts and labour up to your cover limit. Read the trigger carefully: the terms define a breakdown as “the complete failure of equipment, whereby you are able to request a call-out” (cover_plan_t&cs.pdf, definition 7), and adjusting settings, replacing batteries, resetting equipment and repressurising are excluded across every module. The cover limit is £500 in a 12-month period if the boiler is under 7 years old, or £200 if it is over 7 years old, and anything above it you pay yourself.

The annual service comes with a waiting period. If you pay monthly it can only be carried out after 6 months of payments; if you pay annually you can request it once the first 30 days from inception have passed (cover_plan_t&cs.pdf, general terms, item 6). Repairs are carried out by a national network of thousands of Gas Safe registered engineers.

What service plans normally exclude

Exclusions are where plans really differ, and they are the part nobody reads until they need to. This is a summary, and our page on what boiler cover does not cover sets out the Smart Plan list in full.

Pre-existing faults. If the boiler is already broken, or already showing a fault code, that repair belongs to a one-off job rather than a plan you have just taken out.

Damage caused by the state of the system, and consumables worn out through normal use. Manufacturers take the same line: Worcester Bosch's guarantee terms exclude “damage to the Product as a result of water quality or other external factors causing scale, sludge, blockages or associated costs of rectification”, and “the replacement of consumable items owing to fair wear and tear resulting from proper use”.

Parts of the heating system carved out by name. On Smart Plan the boiler and central heating module excludes the replacement or repair of radiators, and also underfloor heating, unvented cylinders, thermal stores, immersion heaters, cold water storage tanks, and steel or cast-iron pipework (cover_plan_t&cs.pdf, boiler and central heating cover, exclusions (c) and (e)).

General exclusions that apply across every Smart Plan module: any repair relating to flues, flue liners, ventilation or fumigation, whether internal or external to the property; any manufacturer defects; repressurising any equipment; adjustments to settings, battery replacement and resetting equipment; and damage from civil unrest, fire, lightning, floods, storms, frost or explosion (cover_plan_t&cs.pdf, section 10, items 1 to 4 and 7).

Beyond economical repair. This is the one to understand before you buy. If the boiler's heat exchanger or PCB fails, the terms declare the equipment beyond economical repair rather than repairing it (cover_plan_t&cs.pdf, boiler and central heating cover, item 1(c)). You then receive a contribution payment set at whichever is lower: the retail value of the equipment including installation, or your cover limit less the value of works already carried out (general terms, item 5). On a boiler over 7 years old that contribution is capped at £200.

The yearly cap is not an exclusion, but it behaves like one at the point it bites. Ask any provider the same question before you sign: what happens on the day the repair costs more than the plan pays?

Four things to read before you sign anything

Monthly price is the number every provider puts in front of you and the one that tells you least. Our like-for-like comparison page goes through this in more detail.

• The yearly cover limit, and whether the age of your boiler changes it. Ours does: £500 if the boiler is under 7 years old, £200 if it is over 7 years old, per 12-month period.
• The fee to get an engineer to the door, and exactly when it applies. Ours is a £95 call-out fee, paid in advance, including in the first 30 days of a new agreement, on an issue that falls under an exclusion, on a visit where we cannot get access, and on an annual service requested inside the first 30 days. The cover sheet can set out further situations, a missed payment adds a £20 fee and suspends services until it is settled, and in the first 30 days you also pay for the works themselves in advance (cover_plan_t&cs.pdf, definition 9; general terms, items 1, 13 and 15).
• Whether the annual service is genuinely included or sold as an extra, when you can first book it, and whether that service is one your manufacturer will accept against the guarantee. Ours can be carried out after 6 months of payments if you pay monthly.
• What leaving costs. With us, a 12-month agreement period starts the first time you use a service, and leaving early after that costs the remaining months or 75% of the outstanding balance. There is a 14-day cooling-off period, and it ends the moment a service is carried out.

Landlords: a service plan is not a gas safety check

A plan is not a CP12. Regulation 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 puts a separate legal duty on you to have each appliance and flue checked for safety at least every 12 months, to keep gas fittings and flues maintained in a safe condition, and to give each existing tenant a copy of the record within 28 days of the check.

A service plan can help with the maintenance and repair side and make repair costs predictable, but the safety check and its record stay your responsibility. Our landlord boiler cover page, linked below, goes through the duty in detail.

One safety point that comes before any of this

A boiler is a gas appliance, so no plan or warranty changes what you do in an emergency. If you smell gas, turn off the gas supply at the meter if you can safely reach it, do not touch any electrical switches, do not smoke, put out all naked flames, open the doors and windows, and contact the National Gas Emergency Service immediately on 0800 111 999.

For everything short of that, the rule set by the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 and enforced by HSE is simple: work on a gas appliance in a domestic property is for a Gas Safe registered engineer. You can check any engineer's registration on the Gas Safe Register before they start.

Want a plan that only covers what you actually want covered?

Smart Plan is modular, so you build cover from the parts of your home you choose and leave the rest off. Boiler and central heating covers repairs with parts and labour up to £500 in a 12-month period if your boiler is under 7 years old, or £200 if it is over 7 years old. A £95 call-out fee, paid in advance, applies in the first 30 days and in the other situations set out above. It is a service plan, not insurance. Tell us about your boiler and we will tell you what cover would look like, or call 0333 772 6247.

Boiler service plan FAQs

Related reading

• Boiler and central heating cover
• What boiler cover does not cover
• Boiler cover vs boiler insurance
• How to compare boiler cover like for like
• Landlord boiler cover and the CP12
• Ideal Heating boiler warranties guide
• Vaillant: how much is a boiler service?
• Worcester Bosch guarantee terms and conditions
• Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, regulation 36
• Gas safety in the home (HSE)
• Check an engineer on the Gas Safe Register