Churchill Home Insurance - beware

Crostonblue

A word of warning to the thousands of people who live in flood risk areas, I live in such an area so I've always been careful to ensure that the Home Insurance cover I have covers the risk of flooding.

On the 17th November 2011 I was completing an online application with Churchill for Buildings and Contents Insurance, as I was filling in the application there were (and still are) two questions relating to flooding, these are -

Q1. To your knowledge as your home (including your land) been damaged by flooding in the last 10 years?
A1. NO as the last flood was in 1987 (24 years ago)

Q2. Is your home (including your land) currently flooded or in danger of flooding?

Now for this one I wanted to be clear on what Churchill were asking so I called the telephone number given as advised if you have any questions. I advised the person I spoke to that my house was in a flood risk area, that the house was 30M from a river, that there had been flooding in the village (1/4 mile away) in 2008, and that my house was not currently flooded or in danger of flooding - the response I got from Churchill was that as long as my house and land weren't currently flooded or in danger of flooding in the next few days I could go ahead and answer NO to Q2 and Churchill would provide cover.

Just to be sure of this I asked them to repeat what they had said and asked for their name and a reference number and I also recorded the time and the duration of the call.

Happy days - or so I thought!!

On the 22nd June 2012 we suffered flooding to our house (not from the river but from the drains that couldn't cope with the amount of water in them), we thought we had been lucky as we only had about 4 - 5 inches of water throughout the property. I called the claim line gave my policy details and advised them of what had happened etc.

No problem I was advised and they duly proceeded to appoint a gas engineer to inspect and test the gas fire (he condemned the fire due to water damage), a restoration company to record and remove all damage flooring and furniture (which they have done) along with the supply and installation of drying equipment.

This is when things starting going downhill - on the first day the drying equipment was in the property I observed and pointed out to the technician that one of the units he was installing was outside of its PAT (electrical safety) testing date, it was left in situ and later starting leaking water and I had to take it out of the house as we had a large amount of water on the floor (again). The next day they sent someone to fix this faulty untested piece of kit but he was not able to and it was the third day that we got the drying process underway with a new unit.

I lodged a complaint with Churchill about the faulty kit and delays to the process and they duly responded with an apology and a cheque for £200 as compensation - we thought things would all go OK from that point on.

This week on 31st July 2012 I received a call from 'Crawfords' the Loss Adjusters appointed by Churchill that my claim was being investigated with the possibility of it being declined due to Non-Disclosure of Information!! When I asked what this was I was informed that I never told Churchill that there was a flood in the 'locality' of my house in 2008 - to say I was outraged would be an understatement. I contacted Churchill and they advised that it was the underwriters who had done this and as the Non-disclosure process was now in effect there was nothing more they could do until that process was complete.

When I questioned them about the non-disclosure they said it was related to the two questions about flooding (at the top of this post) to which I had responded NO in my application, but which don't ask anything about locality at all. When I advised them that I had the name of the person I spoke to about clarifying those points as well as the date, time, call duration and a reference number I got the same response - we need to follow the Non-disclosure process.

Not what I wanted to hear after my house has been 'gutted' by Churchill - flooring and furniture removed and disposed of. Plus we have a four year old little girl in the house who has to wear shoes when she is downstairs at all times (due to no flooring and is limited to where and what toys/games she can play with because of the state that Churchills have left our house in.

I knew I was getting no further in the conversation and resigned myself to being treated like something on the bottom of ones shoe by Churchills and I'll have to play their delaying tactics game.

Funnily enough my wife called Churchills the day after we received the Non-disclosure news and posed as a potential new customer wanting clarification about the same two questions on the Churchill applications process, and surprise surprise after supplying the exact same information - house last flooded in 1987, 30M from a river, house is in a flood risk area, not currently flooded, not in danger of flooding in the next few days, there was flooding nearby in 2008 - she was told 'NOT A PROBLEM, CHURCHILL WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH FULL COVER'.

Needless to say, we also have that persons full name and the time of the call as well.

My word of warning is -

DO NOT BELIEVE any advice or guidance that any of the CHURCHILL SALES PEOPLE provide, it is all designed to encourage you to take out and pay for policies and then ACCUSE YOU of either providing false information or withholding information, and as such QUESTIONING YOUR INTEGRITY AND HONESTY!!!!!!!

:mad::mad::mad::mad:

InsideInsurance

All staff do make mistakes, it is reasonable for the insurer to check what was said to validate your claim. Unless they take an unreasonable length of time to do this or they decide to ignore the fact that their staff gave miss advice there isnt that much grounds for complaint at this time though I can understand the annoyance in the matter.

Crostonblue

All staff do make mistakes, but in this scenario it appears that I seem to be affected by every one of them -

I'm now dealing with my fourth loss adjuster at the insurers nominated supplier - Crawfords & Co, each one of these loss adjusters has purely gone with the initial in-accurate report and all are accusing me of non-disclosure of information.

One team leader at Churchill stated that the recording of my call back in November 2011 did not exist, yet funnily enough after I reported to them that they were mis-selling insurance they very quickly located the recording of both my call in November and my wife’s call on Weds 1st Aug this year.

They are claiming that I never told them about my property flooding in 2008 - the simple reason being it never flooded in 2008.

When I spoke to Churchill complaint team on Friday 3rd Aug they were as incredulous as I am as to why they were told my house flooded in 2008. They even started laughing when I said they should change their application forms to ask whether the applicant is aware of any flooding that never happened to their property and whether any other properties in same Village/Town/City/County have or have not been affected by flooding the last 10 years.

Because - in all seriousness that is what I'm being accused of - Non-disclosure of a flood that never happened, not by one person but by my count at this time by four persons at Crawfords & Co Loss Adjusters and at least four people I have spoken to at Churchill’s.

Not forgetting the £200 compensation they had already issued to me for poor service prior to this pathetic delaying tactic being employed.

The latest is that the non-existent flooding of my property in 2008 is being investigated but I am still accused of Non-Disclosure of Information.

Innocent until proven guilty? Not in the eyes of Churchill Home Insurance!!!

:undecided

Leew1231

I have had professional dealings with Crawfords. I am not willing to say more than that. However, I would suggest you complain and complain and complain and complain a bit more. To Churchills.

In my experience, claiming to the insurer works wonders. Crawfords are employed by Churchills.

Also surely if they have removed all of your belongings, they must reinstate it. Even if reinstating back to the wet state it was in.

Don't worry about the lack of a PAT test. It is something to do with the insulation of the product, it doesn't normally affect the performance. I have seen brand new appliances fail PAT tests that are working fine and a change of the plug can solve it. It should really be PAT tested though if it is for commercial use!

SallyAnne

Home insurance appears a dodgy area with many get out clauses for the insurers to turn down a claim. E.g. your house has been burgled and when you lodge a claim you discover that your door locks were not of their approved type, although you were not aware the locks had to be of an approved type when you were taking out the insurance. My friend forked out £2000 for an antique cabinet on which he had his stereo unit. The stereo unit was burgled and in the process ripped open the back of the cabinet through which the lead was threaded. The insurers refused the claim on the grounds that he would have had a hole drilled on the back of the cabinet in order to thread the lead through, which he had not declared, which would have ruined its antiquity anjd thus its value. I wonder if there is a study somewhere that had compared the cost effectiveness of not insuring and taking a risk with paying premiums for years and then having a claim refused.

malchish

In my experience, every time when a recording is against a company's interests, the recordoing will be lost/not located/never existed. A recording that proves the point of the insurer/company, will always exist and will be definitely found. They keep all recordings, but, because there is no responsibility for destroying/not looking after records, companies always turn it to their own advantage and get rid of evidence.

ALWAYS RECORD every conversation with those companies!!! I am sorry this is too late to say - but at least maybe this will help people in the future.
I still think that the conversation that your wife had, and that they admitted to have had with her, will save you. If Churchill say this to people now, then in all likelyhood they said the same to you when you applied.
Good luck!
And re. mistakes of staff- these are not mistakes, but fraudulelt actions by the company, in my opinion.