Prisoners sentances can be spent, yet you will always be labelled a bankrupt

4$£&*(£$&*(!

This one gets me a lot. As you may know, my partner is bankrupt yet when it came time to shopping around for house insurance I noticed a large percentage of brokers, comparison sites and insurers themselves ask the question -

Are you, or anyone else living with you, bankrupt or have ever been declared bankrupt?

So never mind you can serve a prison sentence for fraud, after the time's been served it's a spent conviction you no longer have to declare by law. Yet if you've made an error of judgement or maybe finances have got the better of you, no matter how well you pick the pieces up and restructure yourself afterwards you will always be branded a bankrupt when it comes to these home insurance companies.

Why the higher risk? Are they accusing all bankrupts of having some underlying fraudulent interest?

Here are the people I've contacted to date who don't want to know -

The Association of British Insurers
The Financial Services Authority
and even HM Treasury

Martin, or anyone, what would you do? I don't want suggestions of which insurance companies welcome bankrupts, instead I want this stupid question to be discarded which effectively criminalises a bankrupt, and their family, for the rest of their life.

Dez-Titute

HI CS Totally in agreement and hopefully the newly proposed legislation will help although I doubt It

Cheers DEz

smiales

CitySlicker wrote: »

This one gets me a lot. As you may know, my partner is bankrupt yet when it came time to shopping around for house insurance I noticed a large percentage of brokers, comparison sites and insurers themselves ask the question -

Are you, or anyone else living with you, bankrupt or have ever been declared bankrupt?

So never mind you can serve a prison sentence for fraud, after the time's been served it's a spent conviction you no longer have to declare by law. Yet if you've made an error of judgement or maybe finances have got the better of you, no matter how well you pick the pieces up and restructure yourself afterwards you will always be branded a bankrupt when it comes to these home insurance companies.

Why the higher risk? Are they accusing all bankrupts of having some underlying fraudulent interest?

Here are the people I've contacted to date who don't want to know -

The Association of British Insurers
The Financial Services Authority
and even HM Treasury

Martin, or anyone, what would you do? I don't want suggestions of which insurance companies welcome bankrupts, instead I want this stupid question to be discarded which effectively criminalises a bankrupt, and their family, for the rest of their life.

You are not alone with your thoughts - it drives me crazy as well - funny how real criminals such as the Jamie Bulger murderers have their identities hidden from the world to PROTECT THEM and we, mere BR's have to declare something that tore our worlds apart on insurance forms and even job applications! :mad:

Its madness and probably best not to think about to much for fear of a hernia!

So_Sad_Angel

CitySlicker wrote: »

Here are the people I've contacted to date who don't want to know -

The Association of British Insurers
The Financial Services Authority
and even HM Treasury

Martin, or anyone, what would you do? I don't want suggestions of which insurance companies welcome bankrupts, instead I want this stupid question to be discarded which effectively criminalises a bankrupt, and their family, for the rest of their life.

Hi CitySlicker,

Good points well made. I have long thought that bankrupcy is a matter that should be bound more closely by DPA / Data Protection Act 1998. Have you contacted OPSI / Office of Public Sector Information ?. See Data Protection website for contact details.

Angexx

debt_doctor

Couldnt agree more, BR's are not criminals but it seems treated worse than those that are. Criminals, quite rightly, can do their time and move on eventually ( although a sentance of two and a half years or more is NEVER spent )

Good luck with your campaign.

DD

susiehasdebts

I do agree that it is unfair to ask if you have ever been bankrupt, when after six years, really we should be able to move on entirely, but in fairness to prisoners, a conviction isn't spent for 7 years if a sentence is under six months, 10 years if sentence is six months to two and a half years, and, as debt doctor said, is never spent if sentence is more than two and a half years, so we aren't the only ones carrying our mistakes on our backs for a long time...you'd think people had never heard of second chances!

pattiemay

Thanks for starting this thread. I have been saying the same for years, my DH was discharged in Feb 2004 after only 8 months from the bankrupcy hearing and we still get treated as criminals, including the amount of times I have been refused (or had a much higher premium quoted) for all types of insurance. Well done for pointing this out, I am sick of feeling like a second class citizen even after four years.

Oldernotwiser

I doubt that many famous bankrupts, like Alan Sugar, Richard Branson and Michael Heseltine feel that they've been "criminalised". Sometimes you just have to move on.

PixiePie

CitySlicker wrote: »

This one gets me a lot. As you may know, my partner is bankrupt yet when it came time to shopping around for house insurance I noticed a large percentage of brokers, comparison sites and insurers themselves ask the question -

Are you, or anyone else living with you, bankrupt or have ever been declared bankrupt?
.......
Martin, or anyone, what would you do? I don't want suggestions of which insurance companies welcome bankrupts, instead I want this stupid question to be discarded which effectively criminalises a bankrupt, and their family, for the rest of their life.

Personally I would make my partner move out (or in my case, I would move out as I'm the one the is BR - perhaps go on a long weekend to visit someone, but 'officially' have a big argument and 'throw' them out....think of the fun you could have doing a hammy performance for the benefit of the neighbours!), do the quote the day they move out, take out the policy, get them to move in. Is there anything in the small print that says you have to inform them if your partner moves in? If so, phone them up, make sure you have strict details of when, who you spoke to etc etc, (perhaps record it if you tell them?) and let them know your partner is moving in with you - they may not be bothered by this (in a very sexiest way this may be more true for a woman moving into a property than a man? Would be an interesting experiment) and therefore you legally get around it - you declare correctly at the time that no-one else lives there, then inform them that they have moved in, but they might not want you to go through the forms again and therefore disclose that the person is BR - you keep your realistic premium. Obviously if they make you fill in all the forms again and redo everything that doesn't really work (but then I've not had this circumstance so don't know, sorry).

The difference as I see it between spent convictions and BR branding is BR IS NOT A CRIMINAL OFFENCE and therefore why should it be branded as such with the unspent-ness of it. We haven't committed a crime, no matter what your moral take on BR, and there may be a Court of European Human Rights case to answer? If you can challenge the non-allowance of wearing of a bangle, methinks not being able to live your life (getting an account to *put money into* for eg when that's the way the world works now) after discharge doesn't really seem to be human right-ish to me....but obviously I am biased here....

rog2

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Sometimes you just have to move on.

I agree with you, onw - but why do so many companies make it so difficult for you to 'move on', by reminding you, and, doubtless, penalising you through 'additional premiums'?

NekoZombie

PixiePie wrote: »

Personally I would make my partner move out (or in my case, I would move out as I'm the one the is BR - perhaps go on a long weekend to visit someone, but 'officially' have a big argument and 'throw' them out....think of the fun you could have doing a hammy performance for the benefit of the neighbours!), do the quote the day they move out, take out the policy, get them to move in. Is there anything in the small print that says you have to inform them if your partner moves in? If so, phone them up, make sure you have strict details of when, who you spoke to etc etc, (perhaps record it if you tell them?) and let them know your partner is moving in with you - they may not be bothered by this (in a very sexiest way this may be more true for a woman moving into a property than a man? Would be an interesting experiment) and therefore you legally get around it - you declare correctly at the time that no-one else lives there, then inform them that they have moved in, but they might not want you to go through the forms again and therefore disclose that the person is BR - you keep your realistic premium. Obviously if they make you fill in all the forms again and redo everything that doesn't really work (but then I've not had this circumstance so don't know, sorry).

The difference as I see it between spent convictions and BR branding is BR IS NOT A CRIMINAL OFFENCE and therefore why should it be branded as such with the unspent-ness of it. We haven't committed a crime, no matter what your moral take on BR, and there may be a Court of European Human Rights case to answer? If you can challenge the non-allowance of wearing of a bangle, methinks not being able to live your life (getting an account to *put money into* for eg when that's the way the world works now) after discharge doesn't really seem to be human right-ish to me....but obviously I am biased here....

Wow - a lot of hardwork for a very simple insurance policy. The above is:

role play - lie - role play.

A quicker solution - just lie.

Seriously though, you should bear in mind that following the advice above will no doubt invalidate your insurance policy should they ever find out the truth.