Home contents claim refused

Mungo76

Whilst it's in your posession, although you don't have a legal claim to it, you have a moral duty to replace anything you have been trusted with to look after and should really be considered as part of your contents whislt it's in your possession.
The FOS will most likely support you if you made a complaint.
Call your insurer and ask to speak to a grown up, if not complain.

dunstonh

I own the laptop and it is registered to me, however, my daughter uses it and has lived away from home with it for 15 months.

Can you clarify whether your daughter is a student or not?

If she is then many policies make provision for that. If she is not, then the insurer is probably correct in treating it as her possession and not yours. 15 months is a long period. Had it been 15 days or even a month or two then you could claim on the basis of borrowing. 15 months is far too long to use that excuse.

I doubt if my daughter's landlord's insurance would pay up either.

Most landlords do not protect their tenants contents. They cover buildings only. Your daughters contents insurance is what you should be claiming on.

At the moment, they appear to suspect that this is a fraudulent claim. They do have some pretty good grounds for thinking that. Hence why you need to answer some of the questions on this thread that are asking for certain details.

FlossyBoots

The response from the insurance company finally came today, after I chased them again. And I quote
"We have been advised that the damaged laptop belongs to your daughter who does not permanently reside at your address. Your policy specifically provides cover for persons permanently residing at your address. This is detailed on page 5 of your policy wording which states:
‘Family/they
Your domestic partner, children, domestic staff and any other person all permanently residing with you and not paying a commercial rent.’

We must therefore consider your claim declined on this basis."

They are also saying "Where goods are sent in for inspection by BeValued during your claim and subsequently held by BeValued, they are only stored for 60 days from the date of inspection prior to disposal in accordance with the WEEE directive and Data Protection act. Any data is destroyed after 90 days from date of inspection."

As they have already taken so long getting back to me I think I'd better ask them to return it. I'm not sure how to proceed really; technically it's my laptop and my daughter is borrowing it but given that my husband has already told them it's my daughters I'm not sure if I have a case. I do have a receipt and there is some of my data in it.

huckster

If your daughter had the laptop and she had been living away from home for 15 months, then I would think that it would considered that you had given her the laptop. It does not matter that you originally bought it.

Did your daughter not have any cover where she was living ? If the laptop had been gifted to her, then she may be able to claim against any Contents or Personal Possessions cover that she may have.

The Insurers may have viewed it differently had she only been away for a couple of months and was going to return to her family home. This is providing that the policy covered it away from home.

pinkteapot

OP - one important point raised by a few people above and just to reiterate... Your daughter needs her own contents insurance. Landlords are responsible for buildings insurance, tenants for contents. The landlord doesn't own the contents and so couldn't take out insurance to cover it even if they wanted to.

It may be that your daughter doesn't have much stuff and isn't worried about the replacement cost, but she should tot up how much her belongings would cost to replace (as new) and then decide.