Sheilas wheels - anyone else had problems? or policy cancellation?

Dangermac

sarahgail wrote: »

What is the alternative to going direct?

A broker would have spotted in a second that £15,000 on a 4 bedroomed house seems inadequate.

By going direct, you have no-one to guide you, and no-one to fight your corner (other than the FOS) if things go wrong, or in the event of poor service by the insurer.

sarahgail

Selden wrote: »

Could you please give the exact wording used? From what you have said it seems that rather than attempting to rely on a specific policy condition they are purporting to avoid your policy on the basis that you misrepresented the true value at risk.

If this is so you should definitely infom them that you wish to make a complaint and, if necessary, have the matter referred to the (click here) Financial Ombudsman Service. There is good legal authority that it is not a misrepresentation if you genuinely believed your original sum insured was adequate, even if that belief was not reasonable. Essentially this is because as a consumer you are regarded as making a representation of opinion not of fact. See Economides v Commercial Union Assurance Co Plc [1998] QB 587.

The letter is almost 2 pages long - do you want me to send you the full wording?

We did genuinely believe we were adequately insured.

I have spoken to SW who have raised a complaint, which they will respond to within 10 days and they advised me to go to FOS after that if I am not happy - sounds like they are used to it!!

sarahgail

UPDATE - I complained to Sheilas Wheels to ask why they voided the policy instead of just paying a reduced claim and they replied today stating we were grossly underinsured and their decision stands. We can write to them and complain again if we want and they will then give us a final decision.

FOS here I come!

WombleSW20_2

I have referred a similar case to FOS and am awaiting feeback. My case is about a ring that I insured for an assumed (purchase) value only to find it had appreciated significantly because of the value of gold. I had made an honest valuation but the insurer will only paid out the purchase value.

Below is a FOS cases I used to support my case - might be useful to review.....

“….assessing the correct amount is not an exact science and it is evident from our caseload that many policyholders find it a genuinely difficult assessment to make. Even where they have made a full and honest attempt to value all their household contents, they may be under-insured. We therefore take a sympathetic line where more detailed scrutiny by a loss adjuster suggests the sum insured may be somewhat short of the true replacement cost”.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/4/exceeding-the-sum.htm

I've been told that I should get a decision from FOS in the next 2 weeks so will keep you posted.

sarahgail

How did it go? Any luck with FOS??

Brize

sarahgail wrote:

Obviously it's my fault I didn't have high enough cover, but it was never flagged to me - similar to the way that some people weren't made aware that PPI was optional, or that people were charged for going overdrawn - but surely the insurance companies have some sort of responsibility to their Customers for fair treatment and so on?

I know this is an emotive issue and I'm sorry to hear that you've been burgled, but, as you've acknowledged, this situation is of your own making. There's no mis-selling here: the policy wasn't foisted upon you as PPI often is. The insurer has an obligation to treat you fairly but you have your obligations as well and you failed to discharge those obligations when you grossly under-insured your contents.

Despite this, I hope that you get a favourable outcome if you take your case to the FOS. I fear, though, that the insurer will successfully argue that they were unable to price the risk accurately because you failed to disclose material facts. Averaging the claim would seem reasonable, but for knock-down insurers that operate on such slim margins, that could skew the actuarial basis of their insured pool.