Advice regarding Insurance blunder

koster

For decades I have had home and contents insurance and have never had the need to claim on it until recently.

Whilst away on holiday, my personal belongings were stolen, but thankfully I discovered that I was covered for it (which came as a huge sense of relief). However, the outcome is not as satisfactory as I was first informed...

I have an expensive hobby and it was these items that were stolen. I provided a detailed list of the items, approximately 15 in total, with original receipts and the cost to replace, set out very neatly and ordered. The insurers, at first, were going to have another company replace them for me, but this third party company said initially they would have difficulty replacing such specialist items. I disagreed with this as 95% of them could be purchased in most high street stores.

Nevertheless, subsequently my case handler at the insurance company decided it would be better if I replaced them all myself. He then instructed me personally to go out and to buy all the items on the list and replace them and that the insurance company would then compensate me the entire amount.

I asked him to confirm this in writing (in an email), which he did. After all, he knew the value of what it would cost to replace ahead of me doing so.

So I went out and purchased all the items, which amounted to quite a sum. I then aggregated the list of items, bundled the receipts and sent them off to the insurer, to my case manager.

Just over a week later, the case manager came back to me and stated that he was able to meet only 70% of the claim as I had a limit on the contents cover as I was away from the home (personal belongings cover away from the home was capped). He admitted he'd made a mistake in saying they would cover all the items and he apologised that he had not seen this cover limit before for personal belongings.

On the one hand I was happy the insurance company were paying out at all, but on the other I am dismayed. Now because of this action and his error, I am left struggling with the extra money I overextended myself to purchase and replace the items I was told to! As I was initially instructed to replace all the items on the list, my question is, do I have any come back on this? Should I complain to a manager? Would it do any good?

Thank-you for any advice, I've never had to do this before and I was concerned about going out and replacing all these items myself, now it would seem that concern was justified.

dacouch

How much was the total claim ?

What was the most expensive single item ?

What sort of items are they ?

magpiecottage

I think that if you have it in writing that they will pay in full you have ground for complaint.

InsideInsurance

In addition to dacouch's questions:

What was the total of the original purchase price?

What was the PP limit on the policy - both total and single item?

The most obvious thing that springs to mind is that you have provided values that fall under the limit hence the email saying go ahead but because of inflation etc the current new price exceeds the limits.

On the surface it sounds like a simple case of under insurance and they may or may not be applying averaging for the under insurance but there is much more a case for an argument if the original total price exceeded the limit too

Quentin

magpiecottage wrote: »

I think that if you have it in writing that they will pay in full you have ground for complaint.

"Having it in writing" isn't the ground for complaint at all.

The OP presumably also has the limits he has exceeded in writing too! (In the policy)

The ground for complaint is the verbal admission by the case manager that he had made a mistake when telling the policyholder to go ahead and purchase the items and he would be reimbursed in full!

ACG

Can you not just take 30% of the items back once you have the money?
That way you have most of the items you need and your not struggling financially.

koster

dacouch wrote: »

How much was the total claim ?

What was the most expensive single item ?

What sort of items are they ?

Thank you for the replies, I really appreciate the help.

I purposely didn't mention specifics like single most expensive item, sorts of items or total claim values because I wanted to keep to the main point of issue and not get bogged down with irrelevancies.

But to clarify certain points raised in comments above:
My home & contents insurance is unlimited. However there is a 'personal belongings covered away from the home' section of the policy that I paid extra for to cover my hobby items if lost or stolen when away from the home.

This section has a ceiling limit on it except for 'specified items' which are for higher value individual items in excess of £1000.

Suffice to say, the ceiling limit only covers 70% of the claim. My guess is that my case handler didn't realise there was a limit on my away from home items (although he knew, of course, it was an 'away from home' incident).

Under insured, therefore, it is (as it turns out). But they were not penalizing me for value depreciation or anything like that. It was a straightforward, 'go out and buy all the items on the list you gave me and we'll reimburse you for the lot' direction.

So after the confirmation email, I went out and purchased them.

But yes, it IS marked in my policy documents, that I get each year, that I am covered for lost or stolen items away from home for unspecified items, up to the total value of £5000 (the 'PP' limit I assume). The per item limit is £1000, anything over that must be registered with them. But as I had approx 15 items stolen, it easily exceeded the total value.

I did not refer to my policy documents, but allowed myself to be led by my case handler which anyone would do.