help with home insurance complaint

rinroo

10 weeks ago i made a claim on my home insurance, accidental damage against my new laptop. My son got his toe caught in the charger and knocked it off my lap. Im covered for the laptop and for accidental damage.

I first notified them on the 19th May, and it took them until the 23rd june to send a courier to collect it, after about 6 phone calls to them. Up until 2 weeks ago(17th july) we haven't heard a thing so we called them and was told they we waiting for us to pay the excess. Nobody had contacted us at all over it, so annoyed we spoke to a manager and he said he'd waiver the excess as a good will gesture and said it'd be fixed and returned to us by the 24th July. Well its not and now they are claimed that wasnt what was promised and it could take a further 4 weeks to be repaired and returned. It still apparently hasnt even been fixed yet.

Do I have grounds to make a complaint and if so how do we go about it, I've never claimed on home insurance before so dont really know where to start. We are insured with the royal sunalliance.

coljacks

Hi, when I had to complain about the length of time it took to sort out my insurance claim, I went straight to the chief ex at the underwriters.

You need to contact the ombudsman and they should give you the details to rectify it via them. If they dont sort it then the ombudsman should follow up.

Hope this helps and you get it sorted.

patchy987

hi, ok so i used to work for rsa and i can tell you that they record all their phone calls so if you can remember the date and time and who you spoke to when they made you the promises you can request they listen to the call.

it is very unusual for them to waiver the excess but the managers do have discression .

the other thing i will say is that rsa do have timelines they are supposed to work to but for the life of me i cant remember them.

this is definately worth persuing though, but your first port of call should be getting someone to listen to the call for you.

hope this helps

*MF*

Hi ... sorry to hear about the hassle you are having.

From experience it is sadly often the case that when something starts going wrong, it just seems to get worse rather than better - until someone takes "ownership" of the problem.

Reference to the Financial Ombudsman is a step you can take, but practice dictates that should happen - after - you have exhausted (without being satisfied) the complaints procedure at the Insurer.

I have included a link below which ironically perhaps boasts of the RSA claims service standards - but it gives you a central phone number and an e-mail process. What I suggest you do is use the e-mail first to list what has happened, and what has not happened - as was promised to you - and get that set in stone within the RSA system, if FOS are eventually required I would like to see you have details in writing.

Were it me I would then leave it for 24 hours - then make a phone call based on that e-mail and your earlier contact, and ask for the whole matter to be referred to the Chief Executive of RSA prior to you referring the matter to the FOS - I am NOT suggesting you threaten them as such - but it is a process which if they don't resolve the matter to your satisfaction - timeously - I think you need to adopt - hopefully to get it resolved, but which failing to allow you to have credible identifiable evidence to present to FOS.

Link here:

http://www.rsagroup.com/rsa/pages/products/claims?contactyou=1&nature=1&country=1&Go=GO&mypolicy=4

Hope this helps ...

PS: Write the content for the e-mail - offline - and cut and paste it into the RSA e-mail set up so you have a copy for your records.

dunstonh

Your complaint seems to be in 2 parts; no notification to pay excess and slow repair. They seem to have responded to the first bit by waiving the excess and that is a good result. That leaves your second issue of slow repair. For that, you should pressure them to find out an anticipated repair date.