Help with Whatever Happens Insurance policy please

Magicowen

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone could give me some advice and tell me if I'm being unreasonable in expecting my product to be covered.
My partner has a rear projection tv and whilst he was building something in the living room, with his kid in tow, his kid managed to damage the screen of the tv with a screwdriver, this was purely accidental in the sense that his child did not purposefully go up to the tv and attack it with a screwdriver!
Anyway I rang up the insurance to ask if we were covered for this and they said yes and organised for an engineer. An engineer came out, took a few pics and off he went. Now we have recieved a letter to say that it's considered to be unexplained damage. Damage caused by neglect, abuse or misuse.
Am I unreasonable in expecting this to be covered, it covers accidental damage and this was an accident as far as i can see!

cyberbob

svegad wrote: »

My partner has a rear projection tv and whilst he was building something in the living room, with his kid in tow, his kid managed to damage the screen of the tv with a screwdriver, this was purely accidental in the sense that his child did not purposefully go up to the tv and attack it with a screwdriver!

I suppose there argument is that the child should have been supervised if there was work going on to avoid this.

Sandoval

svegad wrote: »

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone could give me some advice and tell me if I'm being unreasonable in expecting my product to be covered.
My partner has a rear projection tv and whilst he was building something in the living room, with his kid in tow, his kid managed to damage the screen of the tv with a screwdriver, this was purely accidental in the sense that his child did not purposefully go up to the tv and attack it with a screwdriver!
Anyway I rang up the insurance to ask if we were covered for this and they said yes and organised for an engineer. An engineer came out, took a few pics and off he went. Now we have recieved a letter to say that it's considered to be unexplained damage. Damage caused by neglect, abuse or misuse.
Am I unreasonable in expecting this to be covered, it covers accidental damage and this was an accident as far as i can see!

Ring them up today and dispute it then. This is probably just the insurance company's 'first line of defence' against claims because most people will just take what's been said and give up.

Tell them you're unhappy with this decision and wish to speak to someone higher up.

Give them some grief and see where you get.

cyberbob wrote: »

I suppose there argument is that the child should have been supervised if there was work going on to avoid this.

You could make this argument with practically everything a child does damage to in the home but accidental damage is a large part of what such insurances are there to protect against.

If the child tipped some paint down over the carpet or smashed a window one could argue that they weren't supervised but any rational person would still expect a claim to be honoured by their insurance company.

Esqui

You should get a letter through putting this in writing (oh, sorry, you have - I misread!), and it will give you the address for the guy to write to (Gerry/Gary Perryment, I think.)

The new leaflet: http://www.thetechguys.com/services/whatever-happens/whatever-happens_televisions.pdf mentions on page 7 that "We can help if... your dog chews through the remote" and I know the older ones mentioned kids putting stuff in video players and the like. You'll be right. Just write your case back.

POPPYOSCAR

svegad wrote: »

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone could give me some advice and tell me if I'm being unreasonable in expecting my product to be covered.
My partner has a rear projection tv and whilst he was building something in the living room, with his kid in tow, his kid managed to damage the screen of the tv with a screwdriver, this was purely accidental in the sense that his child did not purposefully go up to the tv and attack it with a screwdriver!
Anyway I rang up the insurance to ask if we were covered for this and they said yes and organised for an engineer. An engineer came out, took a few pics and off he went. Now we have recieved a letter to say that it's considered to be unexplained damage. Damage caused by neglect, abuse or misuse.
Am I unreasonable in expecting this to be covered, it covers accidental damage and this was an accident as far as i can see!

I would expect this to be covered as accidental damage as well. My sister had a policy pay out when her son(age 2) spilt cooking oil all over her carpet.

McKneff

So how did the 'accident' actually happen then, you didnt say.

Magicowen

nope i didn't, because as I said, it was an accident ;-)

McKneff

svegad wrote: »

nope i didn't, because as I said, it was an accident ;-)

Youre hedging, so you make people think it was either stupid of somebody or an avoidable accident.

OlliesDad

McKneff wrote: »

Youre hedging, so you make people think it was either stupid of somebody or an avoidable accident.

Most accidents are both of those things.

I claimed on my insurance for knocking a tin of paint down my stairs. This was both avoidable and stupid!!

POPPYOSCAR

OlliesDad wrote: »

Most accidents are both of those things.

I claimed on my insurance for knocking a tin of paint down my stairs. This was both avoidable and stupid!!

I think we have all done things like that when we think why/how on earth did I do that.

Magicowen

No, i just wrote my post out with the details as it came in to my head, didn't realise i had to go in to vast detail, when I've already said it was an accident, that is the only info the insurance company and engineer asked for also, therefore I didn't realise I have to give you a blow by blow account of what happened.
And to be honest I didn't particulalry like the tone of your post so really didn't want to answer, although I may have misinterpreted it. If someone had said it was an accident and was asking for advice I wouldn't question how accident happened and seem to imply it wasn't an accident.