Claim Rejected by AXA

mattg10

I had my house broken into and my car stolen from my drive whilst i was on holiday two weeks ago.
I made a claim through AXA who to be honest were not the best customer services wise.
they made me feel like i was lying to them (even though i wasnt)
we had to have an Investigation interview which is basically AXA trying to catch you out in order to reject the claim...
We have felt violated since the theft and today two weeks later Axa emailed cancelling our insurance and rejecting my claim as they say the car was on lease and I was not the owner...
has anyone experienced this kind of disgraceful avoidance of claim paying?
we have even been charged now for the hire car we had for 10 days... which i would not have had!!
I now have to pay the lease payments until april and the cost of the car £17800 which will be a little difficult!!

FlameCloud

Did you tell them this prior to inception? Whose name is on the v5, is it the finance companies?

To be fair, assuming you bought directly through axa they do make it clear in their assumptions they will not quote if this is the case.

vaio

Have a read of http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/46/46_non_disclosure_insurance.htm

BertTheRaccoon

All I can assume here is that the question they will have asked when you took the policy out "are you the owner & registered keeper of the vehicle?" and you have replied "yes" when technically you are only the registered keeper.

mattg10

I did not attempt to mislead and I dont believe that there is enough malice to reject a claim made in good faith and thats the important thing.... I hope...

FlameCloud

It's not about malice regarding a claim, it's whether they would have offered you a policy in the first place. According to their website, they will to quote for a situation like this so you might not get anywhere.

Quentin

mattg10 wrote: »

.....Axa emailed cancelling our insurance .......

Sorry, but this is further bad news.

A cancelled policy like this will be on your record, and have to be disclosed to every insurer you approach for cover for ever more in the future.

This means insurance can only be obtained through specialist brokers who deal with "problem" clients and will be expensive.

rs65

BertTheRaccoon wrote: »

All I can assume here is that the question they will have asked when you took the policy out "are you the owner & registered keeper of the vehicle?" and you have replied "yes" when technically you are only the registered keeper.

It was leased so maybe not even the registered keeper.

Its assumptions rather than questions:-

We do not cover vehicles under the following circumstances:

It has been previously written-off or scrapped (including where the vehicle log book identifies that the car has been previously damaged or repaired or an HPI database check identifies the vehicle as Category A, B, C or D write off).
The policyholder or their spouse, civil-partner, partner, parent or child is not registered keeper and legal owner.

vaio

rs65 wrote: »

........Its assumptions rather than questions:-

We do not cover vehicles under the following circumstances:

It has been previously written-off or scrapped (including where the vehicle log book identifies that the car has been previously damaged or repaired or an HPI database check identifies the vehicle as Category A, B, C or D write off).
The policyholder or their spouse, civil-partner, partner, parent or child is not registered keeper and legal owner.

Yep, but their T&C are subject to "fairness" oversight by the FOS so, for example, if I bought a cat D write off without knowing and didn't do a HPI check then that would count as innocent non disclosure and the insurer would still have to pay.

Also see ICOB 7.3.6

an insurer must not:

1. unreasonably reject a claim made by a customer;
2. except where there is evidence of fraud, refuse to meet a claim made by a retail customer on the grounds:
   1. of non-disclosure of a fact material to the risk that the retail customer could not reasonably be expected to have disclosed;
   2. of misrepresentation of a fact material to the risk, unless the misrepresentation is negligent

Sally_A

This is beyond harsh, there are many leased vehicles out there, and by the terms of the lease, the lessee is made the registered keeper and entrusted to insure the vehicle by a signed contract by the leasing company.

Please fight this one, or rather than talk to a pre-programmed dweeb in the call centre, ask for it to escalated to an underwriter.

rs65

vaio wrote: »

Yep, but their T&C are subject to "fairness" oversight by the FOS so, for example, if I bought a cat D write off without knowing and didn't do a HPI check then that would count as innocent non disclosure and the insurer would still have to pay.

Also see ICOB 7.3.6

an insurer must not:

1. unreasonably reject a claim made by a customer;
2. except where there is evidence of fraud, refuse to meet a claim made by a retail customer on the grounds:
   1. of non-disclosure of a fact material to the risk that the retail customer could not reasonably be expected to have disclosed;
   2. of misrepresentation of a fact material to the risk, unless the misrepresentation is negligent

I agree that Cat D non-disclosure could be innocent but everyone should know who owns their car.

I agree with Sally, this is harsh. I can't believe that Axa don't have loads of leased cars on their books and can't see what difference it would really make to a private car policy anyway. I suppose the only thing is to make claims settlement more complicated as a third party would have an interest.