Great 'How to ensure your insurer pays claims' Hunt: How to assure a payout

poet123

cogito wrote: »

You left all your things in an unattended car for 45 minutes in a foreign country and were surprised that it wasn't covered. You were lucky that your contents policy didn' have a similar exclusion as many of them do.

What on earth is unfair about it? The policy was perfectly clear and it's your own fault if you didn't bother to read it.

Thank you for that:rolleyes:

We had driven up from France and needed to get out of the car. It was lunchtime, on a crowded main street in the centre of Barcelona, not a back street in darkness.

I do think the exclusion was unfair, but I agree it was my own fault for assuming travel insurance actually covered goods in transit, and for not reading the small print. As I said lesson learned.

Katie-Kat-Kins

poet123 wrote: »

I came a cropper when I assumed that travel insurance would cover me for goods stolen.....whilst travelling.

Last year we were en route to the airport in Barcelona with a car full of the luggage a family of 5 needs for a 3 week holiday. We had driven up from France, stopped to stretch our legs and eat, were away from the car no more than 45 mins, and it had been robbed, brick through window.

Were we covered ? no, because apparently personal posessions are covered only if in a locked hotel room. Granted, it was there in the small print, but it seemed unfair that a travel policy should have such an exclusion. We eventually claimed on our contents insurance but because of a limit, lost out to the tune of approx £800.

Lesson learned.

It is pretty common for travel insurance not to cover bags left unattended in a vehicle. It is a very high risk, advice on avoiding car crime always says do not leave anything of value in your car unattended. I appreciate that this isn't always practical but this is why it excluded from most standard policies.

You will also find that your car insurance will limit the amount of cover for goods stolen from a parked vehicle for similar reasons.

Also bear in mind that this is the sort of cover insurers are nervous of because of the potential for exaggeration and the difficulty of proving the value of the loss. Once it has been stolen who knows whether your suitcase was louis vuitton or primark? Never mind what was inside it.

If this is something that you need it is often available as an extension to either your car insurance or travel insurance that you pay a bit extra for.

Better to have it as an optional extra at a charge than for everyone to pay for potentially expensive cover that they don't need.

Still at least you learned your lesson and won't be caught out by the same sort of thing in future! Shame more people don't have the humility to do the same and the good grace to share their learning experience with others!

cogito

pedro123456 wrote: »

Dinesh you are not alone in your interpretation, IC’s word their T&C and Policy wording in such a way that they are flagrantly in their favour, often being subjective and open to opinion, sadly this gives them the power to be the Judge & Jury of any claim made.
Of course “eventually” if you haven’t been beat down with their power you can ask for the FOS for a ruling, but this is many months down the road.

It’s ironic IMO, that the ABI (Who represent the collective interest of the IC’s), are endeavouring to “promote public confidence” in the Insurance Industry. While at the same time highlighting the apparent fraudulent claims!!!!!!

So it appears we don’t trust them and they don’t trust us???????


Anyway this is my last input on this particular thread, I’ll watch from the sidelines

Another sweeping generalisation from Pedro. How about giving us some examples of T&Cs that you find objectionable instead of spouting your usual ill informed nonsense?

Whilst you're at it, perhaps you should familiarise yourself with the Unfair Contract Terms Act.

Little_Yellow_Dog

I had terrible hassle with the loss adjustors who took ages to do anything and would keep trying to settle my claim as cheaply as possible. I went from being offered zero, to £1k, to £2k and finally £5.5k. You have to persevere, provide your own quotes (as the insurers will claim that things such as your carpet are worth far less than they really are) and ask for a breakdown of the settlement by component part - I did this and found out they werent paying for a lot of things.

I had a simiilar experience as dinesh17 over a claim after minor fire damage at my property. I have had a constant battle with the insurers since the incident at the beginning of May and it is still continuing now. Independent Inspections Ltd were sent out to value the various damaged items and they have repeatedly attempted to down value everything. They clearly made no attempt to find the true value of the items even though I provided the original letter showing the original purchase of the item, but they used a considerably cheaper item to compare it to, which is totally inaccurate. I have had to argue with them about all of their decisions and had to provide evidence to back up my opinion, which has been extremely time consuming.

The job of the Independent Inspections Ltd is clearly not 'independent' and rather than getting accurate comparables for the true value of the items, they try to minimise the cost to them and the insurance companies. It is also clear that they have done deals with various retailers to provide replacement items in which they have negotiated discounts - showing again their lack of 'independence'. Unfortunately it is down to the claimant to prove the true value of their items and fight their corner.

poet123

KatP wrote: »

You will also find that your car insurance will limit the amount of cover for goods stolen from a parked vehicle for similar reasons.

Also bear in mind that this is the sort of cover insurers are nervous of because of the potential for exaggeration and the difficulty of proving the value of the loss. Once it has been stolen who knows whether your suitcase was louis vuitton or primark? Never mind what was inside it.

QUOTE]

Thanks!

To be honest, as it was a hire car I never even thought of claiming on the car insurance, I wonder if I could have done?

I did get a full and detailed crime report from the police, and the high value items still had receipts.

astevens4

Ive worked in insurance for my whole career, and you are correct and incorrect - all the details will be written down, HOWEVER when you consider some policy T&C's amount to more than 50 pages of size 8 type font, and is written in english SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to only Just fall into the "plain english" category (if your an oxbridge graduate maybe!).

Some companies are very good and others have a definate approach that they reject EVERYTHING on the basis that only around 10% actually are persistant enough to continue to the point where they have to pay up - they actually build this into their business models so BE PERSISTANT is a top tip.

The FOS is a nightmare - you first have to wait up to 8 weeks for the company to issue a final response to your complaint, and THEN the FOS will take it on - average turnarounds for the FOS are currently 12 MONTHS.

Loss adjusters and insurers do everything they can to avoid paying - this is known in the industry as "Claims Avoidance" and firms have dedicated departments and on-staff private investigators to avoid claims wherever possible.

99% of my work is in life insurance type fields, and most life providers are broadly the same - cant really argue with a death certificate, Critical Illness however is a MINEFIELD - the 2 firms with the best rep for paying Claims are BUPA and Zurich. I guess BUPA dont need any negative press cos it'd affect their core medical insurance business - dont know why Zurich pays, but they do!

Hope this helps everyone

Tony

Alan_H_6

I've had two insurance claims settled after a long fight so for anyone who's interested, here's how I did it:
1. I claimed for water damage to a chipboard floor in my bathroom. The chipboard, which should have been waterproof, disintegrated so only the carpet stopped us falling through the floor. The insurance company (Royal) initially tried to avoid responsibility by saying that the damage had occurred over a long time and they had only been the insurers for the last year (my building society had switched without making it clear). After a year of fruitless correspondence, I asked for the address of the Insurance Ombudsman and had a cheque in my hand two weeks later.
2. More water damage caused tiles to fall off the bathroom wall. The claim was rejected but, after much correspondence, my wife went into the building society's office and mentioned that the falling tiles were a safety hazard. The claim was then settled very quickly.

pedro123456

You left all your things in an unattended car for 45 minutes in a foreign country and were surprised that it wasn't covered. You were lucky that your contents policy didn' have a similar exclusion as many of them do.

What on earth is unfair about it? The policy was perfectly clear and it's your own fault if you didn't bother to read it.

Cogito.
So because they needed to stretch their legs for 45 mins they were at fault?, what were they supposed to do to please the IC, empty their car and put it in a locked room?, Or stay with the car and risk being robbed personally?, or don’t thieves attack individuals, do they just rob unattended cars?.............berk

Victims of the small print loopholes produced by the IC for the IC

Katie-Kat-Kins

poet123 wrote: »

KatP wrote: »

To be honest, as it was a hire car I never even thought of claiming on the car insurance, I wonder if I could have done?

I did get a full and detailed crime report from the police, and the high value items still had receipts.

Last time I hired a car we were specifically offered this type of cover when we collected it. Another reason to familiarise yourself with the level of cover you have is so that you can avoid paying for "double cover" and decide whether this sort of extra cover is worthwhile.

Oh and I wasn't accusing you of insurance fraud but I have dealt with claims where people say they have high value items in their vehicle, and even with a receipt you have no way of knowing whether that item was actually stolen. It could be sitting at home still! Most people don't have the receipts either and so have no way of proving they ever owned the item.

It makes the companies understandably wary of that type of claim.

Another tip is that if you are claiming for damage to something (say items in your boot during a road accident) do not dispose of them. Keep them and take photos. Only dispose of them after taking photos and offering insurers the opportunity to inspect them. Again I have seen many a claim from people whose expensive watch was damaged in an accident and they just binned it :rolleyes:

Katie-Kat-Kins

pedro123456 wrote: »

You left all your things in an unattended car for 45 minutes in a foreign country and were surprised that it wasn't covered. You were lucky that your contents policy didn' have a similar exclusion as many of them do.

What on earth is unfair about it? The policy was perfectly clear and it's your own fault if you didn't bother to read it.

Cogito.
So because they needed to stretch their legs for 45 mins they were at fault?, what were they supposed to do to please the IC, empty their car and put it in a locked room?, Or stay with the car and risk being robbed personally?, or don’t thieves attack individuals, do they just rob unattended cars?.............berk

Victims of the small print loopholes produced by the IC for the IC

No they weren't at fault but they hadn't purchased cover for that particular risk. There is a difference.

If you are likely to have to leave your bags in the car unattended on a trip, then you may wish to consider taking additional cover, you may decide to take the risk, it is up to you but your insurance company can't be expected to give you the benefit of additional cover you didn't pay for after the event.

If you take out third party only cover for your car do you expect them to pay when it gets stolen just because it wasn't your fault???? It is the same thing!