Home insurence claim

Alba23

My flat was broken into an a number of items were stolen. My policy is with Zurich and Davies loss adjusters are dealing with my claim. There is no problem with my claim on the elecrical goods that were stolen but a problem with my muntain bikes. The policy i have has up to £40 000 total and up to £2500 limit for a single item and £500 for a peddal cycle. I had two bikes taken , A orange 5 and a santa cruz bullit. i am only getting the 500 for the mtbs. I no my policy states this amount for pedal cycles, but i kept them in side my house as i didnt want to keep them in the shed were i thought they were less safe. Can anybody tell me why they are not the same as any othe item taken from inside my home?

dacouch

Their policy specified under contents that pedal cycles are covered upto £500 under contents in then home. See page 5 of the attached http://www.zurich.co.uk/NR/rdonlyres/40E5ABE3-040A-4442-9272-18212133E3CF/0/0109A_LHomePolicy.pdf

There is no way around this.

To be fair most Insurers restrict bikes to £250 if they are not specified and some Insurers exclude them totally if you do not specify them

Why did you not specify the bikes and pay the extra if the bikes were worth more?

You may find this information helpful at a later date http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/10/oct-repair-replace-cash.htm

Alba23

Thanks for info. I only bought the orange last month and had been building the santa cruz for the last year buying parts slowly. I have only had cheap bikes before. I stupidly thought they were covered by being locked in side my dining room . I understand the pedal cycles for 500 i thought that was if they were in a outside building.

geri1965_2

Something to bear in mind is that if you do insure your bike under your household policy and it gets stolen, the excess will apply.

This may not be a problem if your bike is very expensive, but my bike is only worth £300 and when it was stolen I got £200 back. I have now insured it separately with Evans Cycles and there is no excess under their policy.

I realise that doesn't help with your claim now but might be worth considering for your replacement bike(s).

FlameCloud

Your insurers did that wrong then. The excess is the first part of any claim- so you deduct any excess before applying any limit on the policy. The FOS is very clear on this- otherwise the insurer would never actually pay the limit on the policy!

pedro123456

• pedal cycles up to £500 for any one pedal
cycle including accessories;


Well I would take this to imply up to £500 per bike, so if there were 2-3-4 or 5 bikes valued at say £1000 each the policy would restrict them to a maximum claim of £500 a piece.

How did you interpret it Alba?

Z

pedro123456

So here is another case in hand, although as yet Alba hasn’t expressed his interruption of his policy, although very important, possibly irrelevant

As you will see this part of the policy is (to a degree) open interpretation……………agreed?

The policy holder could perceive this to be upto £500 per bike by the policy payer and holder.
The IC could say ……….”no it means £500 in total”…………..

So two differing interpretations of ONE small part of a massive policy.

So……….whos interpretation is correct, well no ones the wording is unclear

And it is unclear intentionally and for a reason of course it is one of the IC’s loopholes I talk so fondly of.

But…………who has the last word…..the IC of course, they just tell the client no you are wrong……….9/10 the client accepts it and……..bobs your uncle……claim refused or reduced (in this case maybe?)

And this is just one reason why there is no public confidence in the Insurance Industry.

So………….Alba23 they have you over a barrel …….sorry……..lock stock and barrel…………there must be some recourse though, as clearly it is un ethical, maybe these nice people could point you in the right direction, unless of course they perceive the IC to be correct?

Z

mattymoo

It is up to £500 per bike pedro - the policy is quite clear on that.
What Alba is questionning is this - Does the £500 limit still apply when the bikes are in the house and not in a shed or out on the road. I suspect Alba's bikes are worth considerably more than £500 each.

Unfortunately the policy is quite clear on this limit so £1000 would be the limit payable.

pedro123456

thanks again Dan.

this is what I read by Alba "i am only getting the 500 for the mtbs"

And from that I wrote my response but thanks anyway, How confusing words can be ay?

Z

dacouch

To be fair to Zurich their policy has quite wide cover but importantly for customers it has very little small print and is written in as Plain English as possible for an Insurance Policy. No doubt there is room for improvement, but at least they are trying, if you compare it to a cheap and chearful policy from the bottom end of the market you should see the small print in those

Alba23

Thanks for all the replys. I no i messed up and dont expect to recieve any thing else from zurich. All i was wondering was why Pedal cycles up 500.what makes them differant to anything else i have in my home. a friend of mine has thousands of £ of fishing and golfing gear that he keeps in his garage and used to laugh that i kept my bikes inside.
But when did my custom build bike become a pedal cycle. i bought most of the parts second hand bit by bit. But the frame to buy new is £1100, tha forks £900 and the rear shock cost £370. Due to the cost it took a while to complete.If i put the pedals on last is that when it became a padel cycle?