Home insurance after death

Rumlass

My mother in law died recently and her house insurance was with LV, I rung them up to explain that she had died and the house would be unoccupied and that the insurance policy needed to be changed to reflect this.

We paid an extra amount for the change and was not told of any restrictions.

On Xmas day there was a water leak in the property, we rung LV and told of them of the claim they informed us at the time to take picture and said that they would contact us regarding seeing the property.

We have waited a few weeks as we knew that there had been a large number of claims, we rung up today to ask them what was happening and they told us we were not insured as the house was left empty for more then 60 days, even though we'd paid to change the policy to unoccupied. LV can not tell us what the extra premium was paid for and didn't even have my husband name as a contact, it was still under the mother in laws!!

Can anyone please advise, as we feel, that if we informed them and paid extra for the house being empty then the insurance was valid!!!!

Thank you,
Tina.

Quentin

If they have agreed full cover on an unoccupied property then you should appeal their decision and follow their complaints procedure if the appeal fails. (Often certain sections aren't covered after 60 days empty, and usually they insist on precautions like switching off water and draining down tanks etc)

magpiecottage

Quentin wrote: »

If they have agreed full cover on an unoccupied property then you should appeal their decision and follow their complaints procedure if the appeal fails.

An appeal means you are dissatisfied and should almost certainly put it into their complaints procedure straight away - although they may reject it and invite you to make further representations.

If you paid an extra premium for the cover, then you will have a case for saying that they should have provided you with written terms and a revised "Key Facts" document telling you exactly what was and was not covered.

Presumably if you had known about 60 day rule you would have made sure somebody camped out there every 8 weeks or so.

I am assuming the incident occurred after more than 60 days of unoccupancy, otherwise the insurer seems to be on even more dodgy grounds.

According to the FSA register, you can e-mail Nadine.Ralph@lv.com

that will set your complaint running immediately!

Rumlass

Thank you for your replies. After fighting this yesterday afternoon they have confirmed that at the time of changing the cover they should have told us that we need to stay in the property at least once every 60 days, they had checked they phone records and confirmed that we hadn't been informed so therefore the insurance claim stands and the 60 day rule starts as of yesterday!

Succuess!!! which is great since there is hundreds of pounds worth of damage heehee xx