MORETHAN...Vulnerable OAP Dad been refused insurance for the first time ever!

Annisele

Agree with Silvercar.

Potential costs of being without insurance for a few days = cost of clearing up fallen down house + cost of rebuilding house + other expenses.

Potential costs of changing to a new company = difference between what new company charges and what More Than ought to have charged.

2sides2everystory

Did More Than reply?

Lord_Gaga

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Did More Than reply?

Hi there,

Yeah, they did. I'll reply to both you and the other guys in more detail when I get a chance. Needless to say it's not good.

I feel really disheartened.

Lord_Gaga

silvercar wrote: »

Sticking with Morethan and being without insurance for a few days or longer or changing to a new company??

Bit of a no brainer, get insurance with someone else.

With respect, Silver, it's just not that simple.

Being without insurance for a few days wouldn't have been a major problem to be honest. It was far more important to get the situation resolved so that they wouldn't have to declare that they'd been refused or declined insurance to another service provider.

I knew that they'd be penalised if they went to another insurers (as it turns out, I was completely correct in my thinking)

More on that later on...

Lord_Gaga

Annisele wrote: »

Agree with Silvercar.

Potential costs of being without insurance for a few days = cost of clearing up fallen down house + cost of rebuilding house + other expenses.

Potential costs of changing to a new company = difference between what new company charges and what More Than ought to have charged.

Again, and with respect, you're thinking about the short term problem rather than the long term implications.

The likelihood of Dad's house falling down/burning down/flooding within a seven day period is virtually negligible. I certainly wouldn't let it rush me into making a move that wasn't in Dad's best interests. If you have read the entire thread then hopefully you'll understand what I mean.

Lord_Gaga

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Did More Than reply?

Yes, they did.

Here's the content.


Dear Mr ******

Thank you for your recent letter to us about your fathers policy.

I am sorry to hear of your dissatisfaction with the decision to decline this policy with effect from the renewal date of April 10th 2011.

We do conduct a review of claims each year on the policy and apply terms and conditions that are in line with out strict underwriting conditions, in this case we have paid out on two claims within the first period of insurance and due to this, renewal has not been offered.

I do appreciate this is not the response that you had hoped for, and in view of the individual circumstances for your father, I am very sorry that I cannot offer renewal for 2011.

I trust I have explained everything clearly for you and that you are satisfied with the outcome, but if you have any queries about anything that I have said or if you have any new information for my consideration, please call me on: 0800 ******

Alternatively, if you remain unhappy with my response you can now refer your complaint to our customer relations team. You can phone them on 0800******

Blah blah blah

Yours sincerely
Customer Service Manager

Well. To say I was surprised is an understatement!

I called Dad and told him about the decision. I could hear a shift in his tone. He's already had one heart attack in the last year and the stress of this situation hasn't helped. But, at least we'd got a response and I could now set about working out what to do next.

That afternoon I looked at the letter again and decided to grab the bull by the horns, as it were. So I called up the person who made the decision. I put on my polite, articulate, intelligent hat and tried to appeal to her better nature. While she did acknowledge that it was one of the more difficult decisions she's had to make, she said her hands were tied. I suggested she speak with someone whose hands were untied in order to overturn a frankly, ridiculous and unfair decision.

I asked how she would feel if this were her parents that were being treated in this way. She said she wouldn't like it. Hmm. Interesting!

At one point I actually said '<Insert manager name> For goodness sake, I'm embarrassed FOR you! Two elderly and vulnerable pensioners living on basic state pension now face being uninsurable because of your decision. Chances are Dad's not going to be around too much longer and this is how he has to remember the last part of his life? Penalized through no fault of his own?

I could sense her discomfort. I was glad. I wanted her to feel uncomfortable. I wanted her to feel a little of the frustration that we've all been feeling over the last few weeks. I wanted her to see that we're not just numbers; that we're people, with circumstances and a story to tell about how this situation came to be.

She went on to ask if I'd like to make a complaint to the customer relations team to which I said that I wouldn't. I said I'd come on this site and bleat about my unhappiness instead, as it might just make people think twice about buying their house insurance products.

At this point she said 'Well, you may not want to, but I'm going to raise it on your behalf - as I agree with everything you've said'

Confused.com? I was!

Anyway, I spent all day yesterday trying to get them insurance. Most companies wouldn't touch them with a barge pole because they had two claims in their first year of insurance(I did manage to get Lessthan to reduce the claims from 3 to 2, which was something, I guess - even though it was their own fault that there was a claim 3 in the first place. Had their engineer fixed the fault properly then there wouldn't have been a problem).

In the end I managed to find a company (Prestige)who has insured them on a standard buildings and contents cover (no accidental damage) for morethan (spot the irony) almost four times what they paid last year!

I couldn't' find cheaper. I couldn't find anyone who'd take them on. All because Morethan (Lessthan) wouldn't be reasonable.

Flat, Disappointed, disillusioned, hacked off...doesn't begin to cover it really. Saddened is probably my biggest emotion at the moment.

Still, at least they're insured now - albeit at huge cost.

silvercar

Even if morethan agreed to renew, the premium would have gone up because (a) insurance does increase and (b) there are now 2 claims in the previous year.

So comparing the new quote to last years premium is bound to lead to a high percentage increase.

To want to stay with morethan shows a misplaced loyalty.

Sorry that the price is so high, did you try a broker?

somalt

I'm a little bit confused why you feel that this is More Than's fault or that they are behaving unreasonably.

Your parents made 2 claims in a year, I don't see that you have ever stated that was not the case?

You were disputing that there were three claims and More than have accepted the electrical problem and the freezer claim are one claim. (If they hadn't have done that I would agree that they had behaved inappropriately)

Your parents made claims which were covered by the policy and were paid for them. If someone makes a claim and the insurance company pay it, it's hard to see what the insurance company have done wrong.

If your parents had still been eligible for a More Than policy then the premiums would have increased to reflect the claims. You've had to look for another insurer to pay those extra premiums to because they didn't offer the renewal but because of the claims the policy would have become more expensive either way.

2sides2everystory

Very sorry to hear about the latest. Sounds like you have got the message across though.

When you think about the inflated four and five figure claims they lay themselves open to with some of their policies (maybe like that high net worth claim we saw the other day in another thread) and compare them to what has happened here the renewal declinature looks ridiculously harsh.

If you don't mind sharing, LG, what was last years premium and how much did the false teeth claim cost? What was the excess? I don't suppose your Dad saw a bill for the faulty socket as it was dealt with under the Home Emergency Assistance. The cost of it should be discounted as it was a failed repair. The cost of the freezer claim should also be totally discounted as it was a failure to leave the installation safe by their electrician.

So it could be argued that MoreThan can only hold one claim against your Dad i.e. the claim for a pensioners false teeth.

At this stage I think I would be levelling a new claim at them for the distress & inconvenience of the negligent freezer outage (making a drama out of a crisis) and subsequently for well and truly messing up your Dads insurance record which no doubt is plastered over a hundred insurance industry databases by now.

Come on MoreThan - one way or another you have put a family of reasonable now ex. customers / potential future customers to a lot of trouble. You can sort this one out and win some cudos for not letting it go further.

You must not do such things to senior citizens without much more care in the decision making. Even your customer services person was embarassed and was kind enough to say so and should be complimented on her common sense.

the-aljay

couldnt you have withdrawn one of the claims, reuimbursed the insurer for the costs and had the claim struck from their records? leaving you with one claim, and a smaller medium term insurance increase?