Claim Rejected by AXA

vaio

Sally_A wrote: »

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.

Yep, but be carefull, there is a poster out there who takes offence at terms like "pre-programmed dweeb" or "call centre monkey" and will stalk you if he sees your post. Can't imagine what he does for a living but he lives in South Wales.

Getting past the dweebs/monkeys and further up the food chain can be hard so a letter might be better

Sally_A

Thanks for the warning vaio, but guess S Wales will not be AXA, so he or she will probably be sitting back with a smug glow of shadenfraude.

If S Wales poster works for Admiral et al, they are by far from the worst, unfortunately the average punter that uses online companies to save a few quid by not using a broker, usually calls up in an aggressive way, as basically the punter has not read though the cover, conditions, comparisons and has gone purely on price.

Back in the day (over 30 years ago), when insurance was a skilled job, I had to go on a weeks course with Eagle Star to Cheltenham HQ, we had to nit pick policies, and learned why things were worded as they are, the reasoning behind it, etc. - this taught me loads. In fact to this day the only thing I disagree with is that cover notes should be written in black pen, it is so much harder for a dodgy punter to alter a cover note using a blue pen, as there are so many different shades of blue.

FlameCloud

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

The FOS cannot tell an insurer what terms they are willing to underwrite. All they can is tell them to underwrite it as if they knew about the issue. If Axa chooses not to underwrite leased vehicles, they will simply void it and refund the premium.

vaio

sorry, I think they can, my reading of the link in post #3 is.......

If the non disclosure is ruled as innocent then the insurer has to pay whether or not they would have given cover had they known the true facts.

If it's ruled as inadvertent then they have to pay but only if they would have offered cover had they known the true facts.

ICOB as above seems to say they same (or even more) but there might be a get out clause elsewhere

Nicholas-bloody-Parsons

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.

But you have to disclose by law, if you sell a vehicle that was a cat D write off. So thats rather unlikely, if bought from a reputable dealer.....

Insuring a lease car is more expensive, which is why AXA exclude it to offer lower prices to more careful car owners.....

Frankly, I avoid insuring with AXA. They are always the cheapest and the reason is because of the onerous assumptions and they avoid paying out.:cool:

spacey2012

Did the lease company have any insurance in force.
I would think it to be so, Fire and Theft at least to protect the asset.
Just a point missed so far.
Theft Insurance is not RTA insurance and forms a separate part or product of the insurance, so whilst the actual part required for driving can not be invalidated without serving notice, the extras can be so is the contract was found to be formed upon false declarations.
I would contact the lease company and ask them to state if insurance was in force to cover theft.
If it was, the contract can be challenged in court as they would be benefiting unduly.
It may reduce what you owe.
Not withstanding you serve a deadlock letter upon the insurance and ramp it up the ombudsman, you may get lucky.

vaio

Nicholas-bloody-Parsons wrote: »

But you have to disclose by law, if you sell a vehicle that was a cat D write off. So thats rather unlikely, if bought from a reputable dealer.....

Insuring a lease car is more expensive, which is why AXA exclude it to offer lower prices to more careful car owners.....

Frankly, I avoid insuring with AXA. They are always the cheapest and the reason is because of the onerous assumptions and they avoid paying out.:cool:

I and I guess many others have never bought a car from a dealer and in any event the requirement on dealers to actively disclose rather than passively answer questions truthfully is a recent bit of legislation.

Don't know about leased car being more expensive to insure, I can't imagine why that would be given they tend to be new with punitive penalties if you hand them back damaged. I would have thought that would encourage people to look after them and so reduce rather than increase insurance costs.

We must be different profiles because whilst I tend go for the cheapest quote from a name I recognise as an insurance company I've never been insured by AXA

magpiecottage

vaio wrote: »

Can't imagine what he does for a living but he lives in South Wales.

PPI reclaiming scams involving advanced fee fraud seem to be the most common problem there.


More seriously, much may depend on what was asked, and by whom, when the policy was taken out.

magpiecottage

Sally_A wrote: »

Back in the day (over 30 years ago), when insurance was a skilled job,

It still is but we like to pretend it isn't - or rather we give somebody a fancy title and pretend they have the skills when they don't.

In fact to this day the only thing I disagree with is that cover notes should be written in black pen, it is so much harder for a dodgy punter to alter a cover note using a blue pen, as there are so many different shades of blue.

I always used to sign letters in blue because photocopies were only black and white so a black signature of mine was never genuine.

norbet

H'mm this is a tricky one - I recall insurance costing me more with a lease car in the past and and the reason being that it covers what is owed on the vehicle in the event of a total loss. What is owed can often be more than the "market value" that insurers typically pay out when the car is your own.

I'd be intrigued to see how this pans out....