Terms and Conditions - is it legal?

petemoran53

Hi there folks, and happy new year!

I want some advice regarding a issue I am having with Swinton Home Emergency cover. Please bare with me explaining the story, and main points on legality I want to ask are at the bottom!

Basically my boiler broke down, having the Swinton Home Emergency cover (which is managed by homeserve) I phoned them round and they sent round (a rather rude) engineer.

The issue with the boiler was that the pressure was dropping, and the engineer (he was only there for about 10 minutes) said it was a faulty valve, however the real cause was the system was dirty and needed to have a special chemical flush before the valve could be changed. He said to me that he wasn't sure if it was covered (this is the flush, not the valve which is said was covered) or not but would ring the details through and they will contact me. So the boiler was not fixed properly (although it could be kept running by constantly topping up the pressure)

The next day I still hadn't heard back - so I phoned back homeserve and explained what had happened. The guy said to me that such flushing was not covered by my insurance - so I said to him could he tell me what clause in the terms and conditions stated that... He mumbled for a bit, spoke to his supervisor and refered me to the following clause in the exclusions.

We will NOT be liable for any of the following...

b) The cost of replacement parts due to natural wear and tear.

Now from my understanding to fix the issue the system required this special flush, so I don't see how they could use this clause to stop paying for the repairs? I don't believe that if this went to court that they could refuse based on the wording here? does anyone else agree? They adamantly said this was the clause which allowed them to get out of paying?

If anyone has any legal background, or some knowledge of this what do you think? any ideas what I could do about it? as right now I have a failing boiler and a possible repair bill of 500 to do this flush?

Thanks for listening!

andy69_2

tbh i dont know, but would the valve that he said could be fixed for free not also come under wear and tear?

heretohelp

Cant help you on the legal stuff but according to that clause they dont have to fix anything on the boiler. Every time something breaks they can say its wear and tear and and your stuck with the bil. I would tell them to go away in short jerky movements and just phone a plumber out, I cant see it costing you anything like £500.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

heretohelp wrote: »

just phone a plumber out, I cant see it costing you anything like £500.

If that is the real problem I can.

capita_guy

Now you see why most of these insurances are a scam.

Is the valve that is leaking the one that dumps water to the outside?

What make and model is the boiler?

It is possible to change the PRV without a powerflush.

arfurrrr

all these policies are the same , useless . have you ever had the boiler serviced ?

keystone

This is standard in any of these contracts. BG do the same as do other utilities that provide a similar service.

The rationale is that if your system is clogged up (ie not a system failure subject to repair because all systems do it) with gunk and sludge then repairing that one failed item would reduce the life of that item and render them liable to repair/replace it again in a shorter timescale than would otherwise be the case. So yes they all EXCLUDE a powerflush from the insurance AS STANDARD and in that respect it could be considered to be quite legal.

Its much the same as if your car required new fuel injectors but you have contaminated fuel in your system so the garage will want to clear out the contamiated fuel at your cost prior to fitting the new injectors.
.
The trouble is its become a bit of a scam IMHO. It's become the standard BG "cure all" even when they make the judgement that a powerflush is required on very flimsy evidence indeed.

Cheers

keystone

heretohelp wrote: »

................................ I cant see it costing you anything like £500.

:rotfl::rotfl:BG charge around £ 750 and it wasn't that long ago they charged nearly £ 900. An independent would charge iro £ 450 anyway so its not that bad a price.

Cheers