insurance claim for car stolen by deception?

usignuolo

This is a tricky one and I should like to know if anyone has an answer. My boyfriend owned an elderly but much prized BMW he was restoring. He had to go away for business for several weeks and did not want to leave it on the road, so he left it in his grandad's drive, after disabling it. His grandad is old and a bit forgetful but not senile. Anyway after three weeks some men came to the front door and asked grandad if they could take the car away to repair it. Grandad was a bit woozy from the flu and assumed my boyfriend had sent them. So he opened the gate and let them in and they lifted it onto a transporter and took it away! When my boyfriend got back he had heart failure to find it missing. His grandad said he thought the men had been sent by my boyfriend. The police won't do anything about it because they say that grandad let the thieves in, so there was no breaking and entering. The insurance company won't reimburse him for the same reason. Surely there is a crime of deception here - the car was disabled and had to be lifted onto a low loader after all. What does anyone suggest?

mattymoo

Had a quick look at the FOS news publications here
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/31/ins-case-31.htm

Case involving deception 31/4. Unfortunately i cannot see anything in it that would offer your boyfriend any hope.

This was a loss by deception, pure and simple. That is excluded by all motor insurance policies afaik.

Not nice, but had they hit his grandad or taken the car without speaking to him, it would have been covered.

Ian_W

1. Your BF should make an official complaint about the police officers who attended not recording his car as stolen. There doesn't have to be a break-in for a theft/unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle to occur and his vehicle details like reg no/ vin no need to be recorded on their national data base. Plus you need a crime number.
2. He should check his policy wording carefully. The wording in mine about deception is very specific:
• loss of your vehicle by deception by someone who claims to be a buyer or a buying or selling agent
It isn't a general exemption of loss from deception, only in those specific circs as far as I can see. However, there is also a theft exclusion if the vehicle isn't locked and secured with the keys removed when left unattended. You don't say whether Gramps gave them the keys, which might pose a problem if he did. But it's at least arguable that the car wasn't stolen whilst unattended as Gramps was there and that the deception wasn't by someone who claimed to be a buyer.

HTH.

usignuolo

Thanks for that. No car was locked and Grandad did not give them the keys, he did not have them. Also car was off the road in private area. I will tell BF to ask police for a crime number and get him to check his policy carefully.