Friend's mums burgled, BIG insurance problem - help!

Jesthar

Hi all,

I'm posting this on behalf of a friend, and it's a bit of a tale, so please bear with me...

A couple of days ago my firends mum had her house broken into. The lowlife scum took a hammer to her back door double glazing and made off with her work laptop, a digital camera, some foreign currency, all her own jewelery and all the family heirloom jewelery - and, for some bizzare reason, the loading tray out of the DVD player. They left the place a right mess, and as the place could not be touched until the crime scene people had been insurance document hunting was out of the question. This shouldn't have been a problem, though, as my friends mum has been with her insurers for about 12 years with a buildings and contents policy, with a rolling automatic renewal on a direct debit mandate so she didn't have to worry about that.

However, when she phoned them the morning after, she was told that she wasn't insured with them, and hadn't been for over a year! It turns out what happened was that she phoned them in the summer last year a couple of times, once to ask about cover for a new, expensive item she had bought, another to ask if something was covered under the policy. This was a few weeks before her policy renewal date, and the department her file got sent to to process these enquiries never sent the file back, just kept it in their office, and as a result her buildings and contents policy was never properly renewed. Although the direct debit mandate is still in place, thanks to this internal stuff up they stopped taking premiums, meaning technically she hasn't been insured since about August 07! Guess she's lucky in a way that it's only several thousand pounds stolen goods and burglary damage which has brought this to light, not a house fire...

Naturally my friends mum was stunned by this, but although the insurers have admitted it was their mistake which has caused this state of affairs, they are insisting she is responsible as she should have called them to tell them they were no longer taking premiums after her renewal date. Given the time span, of course, this theoretically sounds reasonable, but the whole reason she had the automatic rolling renewal was so she didn't have to worry about that kind of thing, and although she does check her finances every month, she just didn't see it. And, trust me, she would have done something about it if she HAD noticed, as she is the kind of woman who has insurance for EVERYTHING!

So, is there anyone out there who can give any advice as to how to handle this? Or, even though it sounds unfair, are the insurers perfectly entitled to let my friends mothers unfortunate oversight cancel out their huge mistake?

~Jes

Debt_Free_Chick

Submit a written complaint using the insurance company's own complaints procedure. Keep the letter factual and to the point - leave out any emotion and that includes anger/frustration etc - just a calm factual complaint.

See what happens.

Hopefully, it will be the case that the person she spoke to simply doesn't have the authority to admit the claim in these circumstances and that once the matter gets higher up the chain, the relevant person will have the authority and will admit the claim. Using the formal complaints procedure is likely to be the quickest way of having this properly considered at the right level.

Good luck!

CFC

Good luck with it. I hope it works out.

But seriously .... she didn't notice she had not had any kind of renewal notice, or wonder how much she was being charged? She needs to get a grip.

cogito

Uncalled for.

Oscar_The_Grouch

Agree with cogito; this is a forum to provide assistance to people rather than slap them down for, essentially, is the insurers fault. A Direct Debit was in place so the customer would not necessarily notice that the policy hadn't renewed.

It's Christmas, so let's keep the posts nice shall we?

maryotuam

I think getting media coverage might help such as Watchdog and the relevant help sections of newspapers. It might be worth writing to as many as you can and let the insurance company know this. In the current climate, fear of bad publicity might be the only thing that works.

Good luck to her and a Merry Xmas to you. Well done for trying to help her out!

Petal_3

Not everyone reconciles their bank statements to the penny. In my experience you tend to scan your account looking for things that shouldn't be there rather than things that should be, but aren't. She had a long standing DDR arrangement and hadn't heard anything to the contrary from the insurers. Easy mistake to make.

Anyhow, back to the OP. No real words of advice, except for the fact that the insurance company have admitted it was their mistake that it had not been renewed. I suppose this was verbally? If so, does she have the name of the person she spoke to? I agree that a factual letter needs to be written perhaps saying something like - if you can't come to a satisfactory conclusion you will take it up with the Ombudsman - or whatever the next step is.

Horrible thing to happen at ANY time of year. I had a man open my front door at 4am by putting a hook through the letterbox (stupidly hadn't double locked the door but HAD put the chain on). Fortunately, I heard him and ran down the stairs and closed it. I had a security alarm fitted yesterday! Same thing happened to next door.....they DID get stuff from them.

SCUMBAGS! Makes my blood boil :mad:

Good Luck to your friend (and sorry for the rambling post)

~x~

rudekid48

maryotuam wrote: »

I think getting media coverage might help such as Watchdog and the relevant help sections of newspapers. It might be worth writing to as many as you can and let the insurance company know this. In the current climate, fear of bad publicity might be the only thing that works.

Good luck to her and a Merry Xmas to you. Well done for trying to help her out!

I'd think very carefully before following this advice!! If we take the emotional/time of year aspect away from this and try to look at the cold hard facts. No payments have been collected for over 12 months, the onus is on the policyholder to make sure that payments are made. Your friend did not check that payments were being made and that part is nobody elses fault but their own. However, the Insurer has admitted that an error was made at their end. It would be very useful if that was put in writing, but even if it isn't there should be a recording of the conversation at their end and your friend is entitled to get hold of either an original copy or a transcript of the call from the Insurer (usually at a cost). The outcome of this is going to depend on which mistake is regarded as being the worst (for want of a better phrase). This is why you should be careful about following the advice in the previous post as you are in effect going to be asking an Insurance company to re-instate a policy that will then cost them £1000's in a claim. Making threats is not a good place to start. Some of the other advice on this thread is more sensible. Write a letter to them, outlining the full details and referring to the admission of their mistake (time & date of call are essential). Bear in mind that your friend would now be in another policy period so in effect you are asking them to re-instate 2 years of cover. Be polite, factual and keep all emotion out of it. If you get nowhere, then you should start down the complaints process, but to be honest I do think that you will struggle with this one.

I really do hope that this works out for you as it must be horrendous to be in that situation.

Jesthar

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the advice, just thought I'd give you an update.

And it's good news, thankfully - my friends mother now has it in writing from the insurers that the lack of policy renewal was their fault, she obviously intended to continue with her cover, and if she pays the back-premiums they will consider her claim in the normal manner.

So, still the actual claim process to go, but at least she's getting to make one!

Thanks again,

~Jes

Steve1981

as unfortunate as it sounds - there is no contract in place, if a policy doesn't renew or payments aren't taken its ph responsibility to contact the insurer.

If since august 07 (which if it was due to renew in august 07 and then again in august 08 is actually TWO renewals ago) no pol documents (TWO sets) and at least 1 renewal (august 08) and at least SIXTEEN monthly direct debit payments not being taken and the ph did not realise that something was amiss i dont see how anyone can complain. if it was maybe two months you could argue docs may have been lost in the post or the bank messed up the dd - but the time frame and all that has occcured is just simply too much to question

Steve1981

Jesthar wrote: »

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the advice, just thought I'd give you an update.

And it's good news, thankfully - my friends mother now has it in writing from the insurers that the lack of policy renewal was their fault, she obviously intended to continue with her cover, and if she pays the back-premiums they will consider her claim in the normal manner.

So, still the actual claim process to go, but at least she's getting to make one!

Thanks again,

~Jes

dont know how i missed this, she has been VERY lucky and i think the insurer has been very accomodating (no doubt now they will have earnt themselves a customer for life)

out of interest who is the insurer - i think htey deserve to get some credit for this