When do I contact FOS??

sarahgail

Hi,
Some of you may remember a problem I had a few months ago with Sheilas' Wheels home insurance - basically we were burgled, we put in a claim, had to fill in a 'value at risk' form confirming the value of all our contents (apparantly standard practice with all SW claims!!) then SW said that as we were only 50% covered (despite the claim being only 10% of our original cover) and they voided our policy :mad: causing us no end of hassle and expense. (I was also told by our loss adjustor that a high percentage of people are under insured for their contents.)

I have now written a 5 page letter of complaint to SW about this and fully intend to take the case to the financial ombudsman, regardless of the response from SW as I don't believe insurers should be allowed to get away with this. My question is, when can I go to the FOS? Can I do it now? or do I have to wait until SW respond to me?

Thanks

Quentin

Read up on complaining via FOS:

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

zppp

You cannot take to the FOS until;

- 8 weeks have passed since your original complaint OR
- you have recieved a final response from the organisation - meaning you have to go through the entire complaints procedure

I think you are confused about the powers of Ombudsmen OP. They are not regulators, they just settle individual disputes between companies and consumers. I don't think FOS would take lightly not giving the firm the chance to resolve your complaint, as they FOS don't have unlimited resources.

Quentin

I fear the OP has a grudge, and common sense has been chucked over this:

sarahgail wrote:

I fully intend to take the case to the financial ombudsman, regardless of the response from SW

dunstonh

SW said that as we were only 50% covered (despite the claim being only 10% of our original cover) and they voided our policy causing us no end of hassle and expense. (I was also told by our loss adjustor that a high percentage of people are under insured for their contents.)

If you under insure then the ratio you have underinsured by is applied to your claim. i.e. if you have £50k of contents and you only insure for £25k then any claim you make will be reduced by 50%. That is quite normal. Voiding the policy is not normal. So, there may be another reason for that. Or it may be something that a complaint should look at.

I have now written a 5 page letter of complaint to SW about this and fully intend to take the case to the financial ombudsman, regardless of the response from SW as I don't believe insurers should be allowed to get away with this.

As mentioned above, there is no point in doing that as the FOS has no regulatory powers. It is not a regulator. It will just hold up your complaint for another 6-12 months (assuming your complaint is upheld in the first place).

foggytown

zppp wrote: »

You cannot take to the FOS until;

- 8 weeks have passed since your original complaint
- you have recieved a final response from the organisation - meaning you have to go through the entire complaints procedure.

But if they send you their "final response" before the 8 week period is up then I think you can submit your FOS complaint at that point.

dunstonh

Its 8 weeks or the deadlock letter whichever is earlier.

vaio

dunstonh wrote: »

If you under insure then the ratio you have underinsured by is applied to your claim. i.e. if you have £50k of contents and you only insure for £25k then any claim you make will be reduced by 50%. That is quite normal. Voiding the policy is not normal. So, there may be another reason for that. Or it may be something that a complaint should look at......

I can see the logic in pro rataing the claim to the % of under-insurance.

As for the voiding, whilst relatively small under valuation would probably result in this I guess there might come a point where accidental undervaluation crosses the line into deliberate misrepresentation and thus allows voiding

sarahgail

Thank you all for your help

Everyone seems to be of the opinion that a percentage of our claim should have been paid and a friend who is an underwriter has even said that 50% underinsured should still warrant a 50% pay out, so voiding our policy has been drastic and as far as we know there are no other reasons they would/could have done it, just an honest mistake on our part.

So if the FOS are not regulators, would it be the FSA I would go to with a complaint?

I will wait until SW responds to me and see what they say.

Thanks again

dunstonh

so voiding our policy has been drastic and as far as we know there are no other reasons they would/could have done it, just an honest mistake on our part.

Voiding normally occurs if you fail to disclose material facts which affect the decision to offer terms or they feel what you have done is fraudulent. Or it could be an error.

So if the FOS are not regulators, would it be the FSA I would go to with a complaint?

The FSA are the regulator but they dont handle consumers complaints. If you complain to the FSA they just forward your letter on to the firm. You cannot circumvent the complaints process.

I will wait until SW responds to me and see what they say.

That is the way to do it.

FYI, the FOS has stated in its publiciations that it does not expect consumers to be perfect with regards to getting the sum insured correct. It typically is more consumer friendly where you are out by a small amount. However, a 50% error is not out by a little bit. Its at the levels where you start to think of fraud or intentional incorrect disclosure. Not saying it is in your case. Just helping you understand why you may be getting this response (as vaio above suggests)

mikey72

Was the value insured the default from the website, or did you amend it to your own amount?