Laptop Insurance Woes

Heir_2_Hesjane

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this - someone please direct me to the correct forum if it isn't!

I'm pulling my hair out over a claim that has gone disastrously and I'm hoping someone here may be able to offer some advice...?

I'll go through the events in time order (sorry in advance for being long-winded about it all!):

• Some time in Feb I tripped on my laptop power lead - and ended up yanking the laptop off of my coffee table and onto the floor. As a result my (3 year old) Powerbook now has severe screen damage.
• I phone my Halifax home insurance who arrange for it to be inspected by their chosen laptop repair company - Powerplay.
• Powerplay pick up the laptop and inspect it for 2 weeks. In the meantime we become reliant on our desktop PC (move all our email accounts, iPods, etc there).
• Powerplay say it is economically repairable with a new screen from Apple (about £800 inc fitting) and so I pay my £150 excess and they fix it.
• When I receive the laptop I try it once and it seems ok - but now I go back to using the PC for the next month (as it's all set up). A few more intermittent uses of the laptop and I realise it has an intermittent problem with the screen flickering and then blacking out. A few weeks later this deteriorates to the laptop not turning on at all!
• It's now April and I contact Powerplay and they arrange to pick it up (which takes nearly two weeks as their courier keeps going to wrong address, or going to the right address asking for the wrong person!). Anyhow, I package it in LOTS of bubble wrap inside a cardboard box for the courier to finally collect.
• Powerplay contact me and tell me they've received the laptop - but they're not willing to entertain the idea that the problem is because of their shoddy fixing, but that it is because the chasis is VERY damaged. They send me photos, and true enough the laptop case has a 2cm wide open buckle (case is aluminium) down one side of it!!!
• I insist that it was physically perfect and intact (which it was!!) when I placed it in the box for pick up - but they refuse to believe me and state that they checked the box when it arrived and it had no signs of being damaged in transit.
• Halifax have taken Powerplay's word over mine and have offered to open a new claim (subject to another, higher excess of £200 and another mark against our claims record).....

So now I'm £150 down, my insurance renewal and excess went up as a result of a claim, and I'm left with a brick for a laptop.

If the contract with the courier was with me, and not Powerplay, then I would certainly be chasing them up for the damage... however they won't even talk to me because they were hired by Powerplay who signed off on the delivery as being in good condition.

Does anyone have any recommendations for what course of action I should take? Halifax have only offered me the option of another claim (with the understanding that they won't ask the usual questions as I can't answer them - like "how/where/when did it happen?"). Powerplay point blank refuse to accept liability and insist that the damage occurred whilst the laptop was in my possession.

Thanks,
John

dacouch

There was a very very similar thread on MSE about a month ago about a lap top replacement from Powerplay and the Insurer was Legal and General. They eventually agreed it was their fault

dacouch

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=566378&page=3