Contents Insurance problem

cmurton

Hi I have never posted on here so forgive me if I've messed up anywhere and sorry for the long story!

Basically I moved into a flat in 2005 and prior to completion I received a call from someone at Norwich Union via Your Move (our vendors estate agent) asking if they could provide me with a quote of contents insurance on my new property. The quote was quite competitive so I said that I would go ahead. They also then asked about the cover I had in the flat I was moving from and again gave me a competitive quote. So the guy told me they would cover my last 2 months at my current address and then the policy on my new property will commence from when the estate agent at Your Move confirmed to him that we had completed. I had all the statement of insurances on both quotes through the post and a letter to confirm all of the above.

In the last 3 years I have never received a renewal letter from them but as I have been paying our premium by monthly direct debit the whole time, I didn't really think it was a problem as the amount only varied by the odd pound or so each month. However, what with the recent credit crunch, thought that I would have a look about and see if it is still competitive. When I called them to ask what my last annual premium was, they told me that there is no live policy for me?! After a bit of investigating, they have told me that the policy was never changed to my new address, so for the last 3 years I have been paying a premium on my old property!! They told me that I should have noticed on the renewal that the risk address was my old address, but I argued - how could I have seen that, if I have never received the renewal, as you have been sending it to my old address because you didn't update your records!! They did agree and asked me to send proof of my completion date, and the letter that clearly stated "Your local Your Move branch will notifiy me of the exchange and completion dates and I will commence the policy on their confirmation" that proved that they were not waiting for me to let them know. I sent it all across and immediately got a reply saying that they have looked at the policy and can see that it should have been switched over, so it has all been sent over to the supervisor, who will contact me in due course.

Obviously I am not happy about this at all, I have been uninsured for over 3 years because of their error, and I am going to ask for every penny I have paid back! What I want to know is do you think that I would be entitled to claim for any form of compensation?

Quentin

No.

If your house had burnt down and you lost everything, would you have been happy just to get a refund of your premiums?

Of course not! They would have corrected the admin error and progressed any claim.

dacouch

I totally agree with Quentin, you believed you were covered by NU and would have made a claim against them if you had a problem. They would have gone through the process with the completion letter and then paid the claim assuming it was a valid claim.

The only thing you would be entitled to back is if the new home is a cheaper property to insure, in that you could ask for the credit to be back dated. They will try to only offer one year due to the admin involved. However it could work in your favour if the new property was more expensive to insure as they probably won't wask for the extra premium