Insurance Claim - No receipt. How do I prove ownership

fordy434

Hi,

My friend rents a storage room and there was a break in. There items were stolen, including numerous electrical items and clothes. My friend does not have receipts for the electrical items, or any of the serial numbers to obtain replacement receipts. These were paid for in cash, as he does most items and due to this has no credit card receipts either. The insurance company are saying that without receipts they will not pay out and my friend has been to the shops where he bought the items, but they say without the date & time he bought the item and without a serial number, then they cannot provide replacement receipt.

My friend feels the insurance company are asking for something that is impossible to provide.

How can he get around this?

Thanks

whitewing

Does the storage place have any kind of CCTV that would at least show it being put in? Possibly not though as I think privacy can be a concern for storage.

If there is a log of each time he visits, plus CCTV of it (showing nothing taken out), that could help.

However, I guess even if they have CCTV they will wipe it after 30 days or so.

Has he got any photos of any of the goods (eg in the background of family snaps, or wearing he clothes).

What electrical items exactly? If you list, maybe we can think of specific ways to help.

Why was stuff in storage?

Who is he claiming off - the storage company's insurance or his own? (I don't know how these things work)

Was it just his that got broken into, or a lot of them?

fordy434

Its Royal Sun & Alliance a private policy that the storage company tell you take out when storing.

It is a dell laptop, sony vaio laptop, ps3 and various games and dvd's etc and boxes of clothes. His daughter went away to Australia and so he stored them for her, but he bought all of the items for his daughter and the storage and insurance policy are in his name.

The CCTV is only kept for 90 days and everything was taken into the unit in boxes so this would not show on the CCTV.

He is not too concerned about the clothes but the electrical items are of a high value. He cannot obtain receipts and feels he has been let down now by the insurance company as they are asking him to provide things that he cannot do.

huckster

Were the products ever registered for warranty purposes with the relevant companies. When you register, you normally supply the serial numbers, product bought, where and when purchased etc.

If they did this with the products, then all they have to do is contact the relevant companies customer services and they should be able to supply the information that was originally provided.

fordy434

i will have to look into that becuase I am not sure. That is a good idea though, thanks. Will it matter if they are not registered in his name, like in his daughters name or wifes name?

InsideInsurance

It really shouldnt matter who's they are as it should cover that storage container rather than the person that happens to be named as the hirer but you would need to read the wordings.

I am not really sure why he feels let down? It sounds like at the moment he is offering nothing as proof other than his word which he cannot truly believe and insurer will simply accept without something else to back it up?

Warranties and registrations on the major electricals are the most obvious ones to look at. Sometimes insurers will accept more loose connections as long as their are sufficient examples given like photos of you with the items, instruction manuals, original boxes/packaging etc. At the end of the day insurance is governed on the balance of probability so unless the contract wording says it must be receipts then its just a case of giving enough evidence to tip the scales. If the wording explicitly states receipts you've got a much bigger up hill struggle.

fordy434

thanks for your help

huckster

fordy434 wrote: »

i will have to look into that becuase I am not sure. That is a good idea though, thanks. Will it matter if they are not registered in his name, like in his daughters name or wifes name?

Would show you had the items. Whoever bought/registered the items should make the enquiries. They might for security reasons want the residential address, email address etc of the person who registered the item. They might ask to send the information through to the relevant email address of the person who registered the products.

whitewing

Possibly, high value items may have been named on his daughter's previous contents insurance so that may be evidence of some goods. In fact, previous insurance may also insure clothesup to a certain amount, so again could be evidence. As she has gone to Australia, it would make logical sense that stuff she couldn't take was put in storage. Maybe get a list of what did go with her/was passed on to other people, and see if you can come up with something about what was left. She presumably wouldn't have stored more than she was previously insured for.

CCTV could show 'amount' of stuff. If only one box was taken in and nothing taken out, then would have to be a very big box! Again, still provides some evidence. Is there CCTV of stuff being removed by the thieves? Even if storage co pixelate faces or something so you can't identify the thieves and go and beat them up, it still could show your boxes being removed and tie in with 'quantity' of goods.