Vacuum cleaner turned fireball damages car,..

esuhl

texranger wrote: »

yes i understand, but will any insurance company, we all know they will try everything to not pay out.

i was just saying how an insurance company could look at it

I can't imagine there'd be anything in the contract that allows the insurer to withhold payment just because they think that something that the policy holder did was unwise, particularly when it had no bearing on whether a claim would have been made. The vacuum cleaner was on the OP's insured property. Moving the cleaner was not a contributing factor to the claim and nor was it deliberately reckless.

If that's how they're playing it, I'd have a look at the Unfair Contract Terms Act and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations - they certainly sound like they might be of help (I'm no expert!).

In any case, you probably need to pursue the manufacturer (or importer) in the first instance. The insurer will probably refuse to pay out unless you have tried that first.

thebigstillmeister

...hi all, thanks for the responses,....

To confirm, the car insurance company has no objections and are happy to pay,... although in the meantime (and we have informed the insurance company of this) we are going to try and claim the repair costs from the Manufacturer, in which case we will not need to proceed with the claim through the car insurance company.

The insurance company have so far arranged for a quote on the repairs from our local garage, which we are just waiting for.

Thanks,

Kira000

Hintza wrote: »

Lock your doors when you are in? We don't lock or doors when we are out!!

You must live in a rough area!

It is a no-win situation indeed. We were burgled 18 months ago, and the home insurers refused to cover us as the front door was not locked with a key, even though we were in, as by using an implement to pull the handle via the letter box, there was no "forced entry".

We have UPVC doors, with the handles that "locks" the door from the outside when you pull the handle up inside, so you cant open it just by using the outside handle.

And no, we dont live in a rough area at all. According to the plods who came round, it is a very common thing these days and they always advise locking your doors from the inside when home, and no, leaving your keys in the lock or by the lock, is not recommended either by the police or allowed by the insurers. We tried the fire brigade recommendations approach with the insurer, but failed..

esuhl

Sounds like you've got the ball rolling. I hope it's easy to get this resolved.

thebigstillmeister wrote: »

The insurance company have so far arranged for a quote on the repairs from our local garage, which we are just waiting for.

That'll be handy - you can present a copy of the quotation to the manufacturer and ask them to confirm that they will settle up with you.

thebigstillmeister

Hi,

Sorry been a while,... but as this post got so much attention I thought i'd let you know how it turned out.,

We had the health and safety inspector come out shortly after and he said it was one of the worst he'd seen.

The vacuum was shipped off to the manufacturer and after many months of chasing, as their customer service seemed to be terrible, they came back with something along the lines of 'although we don't except liability, we do however think there is justification for some compensation,..'

They basically sent us a new vacuum cleaner and transferred the full £1,200+ in to our bank account which covered the cost of the repair.

We also went to tesco and after showing them a picture of the vacuum cleaner, they gave us a full refund as well.

Thanks,

If_it_can_go_wrong

Pleased you got a satisfactory result.

shaun_from_Africa

You shouldn't really have accepted the refund from Tesco as the manufacturer had already covered all of your repair costs and given you a new vacuum.

If Tesco attempt to reclaim the cost of the vacuum from the manufacturer and they in turn check their records and find that you had already been given a replacement, Tesco might attampt to recover the money they refunded you.

I know that it's unlikely for this to happen, but with accountants trying to save money at every opportunity, you never know.

thebigstillmeister wrote: »

Hi,
They basically sent us a new vacuum cleaner,

We also went to tesco and after showing them a picture of the vacuum cleaner, they gave us a full refund as well.

societys_child

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

You shouldn't really have accepted the refund from Tesco as the manufacturer had already covered all of your repair costs and given you a new vacuum.

If Tesco attempt to reclaim the cost of the vacuum from the manufacturer and they in turn check their records and find that you had already been given a replacement, Tesco might attampt to recover the money they refunded you.

I know that it's unlikely for this to happen, but with accountants trying to save money at every opportunity, you never know.

I'd have accepted it in the circumstances, if Tesco want to reclaim, so what?

halibut2209

Thanks for the update