Insurance Policy not covering what we asked for!

Tea3

I took out an insurance policy in July last year for my house, personal contents and business insurance (with stock covered). The company I used sent the documents out but we did not receive them - we contacted them again confirming address etc and again nothing was received, however the owner of a shop we had previously enquired about insuring called to say why were we getting mail sent there (they had opened letters to get our contact info etc and now knew our business stock levels, personal contents, what security we had installed etc). We contacted the insurance company again who sent the documents to us on the third attempt. By this time it was end of August and on checking the documents only business stuff seemed to be insured - we contacted them and they said we were only covered for business and not for our home or personal contents. We explained we had specifically asked for all to be covered and gave details to the orginal sales person of values for house, contents etc and if only business covered they were much more expensive that all other quotes we had received and we would not have gone with them as I like everything to be insured (never claimed but like to be covered). It dragged on for weeks, back and forth with managers and listening to recorded conversations before they admitted their error and included house building and personal contents insurance onto our policy - or so we thought!!! I could not see personal contents listed so called their 'team leader' who confirmed that it was included and not to worry. All sorted you would think....

Yesterday I contacted them to change the policy to a limited company one only to find out that we are covered for £49,500 'plants and machinery' and not £49,500 personal contents - as we dont have any machinery for the business we could not work this out but they said they dont cover personal contents at all and we are not covered for this! They then went on to confirm other policy details saying we should have bars and metal shutters on all windows of our house otherwise the insurance is not valid - at no point was this mentioned in the original calls as its something I would remember and ensure I told the insurance company about - originally they only said Level 1 security and when I asked what that was they said mortice locks on doors minimum, window locks etc - all standard stuff. At this point the sales person said they would talk to underwriters and get back to us - needless to say we are shopping round for other quotes as we speak but my main problem is we paid them £379 for buliding, personal and business insurance and it turns out we are not covered for personal and possibly not anything else due to having no metal shutters - so if we are NOT covered are we due a refund? I ahve a sneaky feeling they will try to pro-rata the refund and deduct handling charge or something but is there anyway I can get a full refund? Do I have any rights or is there someone I can complain to about all this? Its not so much the money but I dont see why they should get it when they set up the wrong insurance - for the past 10 years I have been insured for everything as a mjor worrier and to think I am sitting here uninsured due to their multiple muck-ups is frustrating.

Sorry for the long post - am worked up over this - believe me this is the short version - there have been over 30 phone calls and a couple of letters back and forth regarding this back in July/August.

Mark_Hewitt

A full refund? No way, you'll get back the money pro-rata for the time you cancel the policy. Cancel it as soon as possible, they seem like a right bunch of jokers.

BlueAngelCV

It's been missold so I would push for a full refund. If they had recordings of previous telephone conversations would they still have them.

I would put everything in a letter to their head office & demand a refund.

And cancel ASAP!

dacouch

They have sold you a "Business" Policy which is why they are howing your home contents as "Machinary and Plant" it is also why they cannot cover your personal effects as these are not normally offered on a busines policy.

If you had needed to claim you would have gone to them for a claim and got them to listen to the tapes and the chances are they would have had to pay for it if they had made a mistake. Therefore they will possibly make a small charge for the time you have been covered, you may however find they would prefer you insured elsewhere seeing as they have made a mistake so may give you a full refund.

Speak to a broker and ask for a "Combined Home Business Policy"