Currys KnowHow Insurance Claim rejected on TV due to "Excessive Damage"

jansh77

Hi fellow MoneySavers!

I purchased a 42" Samsung from Currys approx 5 years ago and have been paying £7.99 each month towards a Whatever Happens insurance agreement.

The TV recently fell from the shelf it was on whilst my younger brothers were playing in the room. Unfortunately there was nobody else is the room when it happened but I rushed in straight after and saw the immediate damage.

I reported the damage to the customer service team stating the above details. I was originally told when sold the insurance policy that the TV would be collected the next day for the engineers to assess it. It was collected 7 days later as this was the only slot the employee could book which was a great way of the process starting!

I received a phone call today from the KnowHow team (4 days after collection) stating that the engineers have inspected the TV and concluded that there is "excessive damage" in relation to the reason I provided and as such they are returning the damaged unit to me. The assistant stated I could appeal this decision only by writing to the Claims Investigation Department.

I have sent a letter today explaining that the TV fell from its shelf which was approx 5-6ft off a concrete floor. As the TV is old and rather heavy (about 30kg) and it fell on some of their toys there was a lot of damage with the glass screen falling out of the unit and the frame and its stand cracking. I feel that the damage is definitely clear given the details of the height it was at and type of flooring it landed on.

I added that as this was our main family TV I was annoyed by the time the process has already taken and that we have been inconvenienced as a result of their poor service for the last 12 days. I also explained that I have paid approx £480 in insurance costs and with TV costing £350 initially, I am therefore £830 out of pocket and I could easily have bought a high spec TV with the insurance costs alone. I was told by the KnowHow advisor on the phone they will take 7 days to assess the appeal, however, after googling similar situations it appears this will be longer than 7 days!

I am hoping they will accept the claim yet I just want to prepare for what the next steps could be. I do not have a copy of the full terms of the warranty to try and seek out whether there was any specific mention of accidental claims being refused for "excessive damage". I did see some similar situations mentioning possible use of small claims courts but I would prefer to avoid this route as it sounds rather long-winded.

I will keep the thread updated with their correspondence but any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for your time!!

Jakg

Just to point out by "excessive damage" they mean "in relation to what you told them happened".

Occasionally (luckily pretty rarely) people will try to abuse such policies by intentionally damaging their items and then pretending it "accidentally fell over" when it's clear it was either something else or intentional (note - I'm not saying this has happened in your case!) damage, in order to secure a replacement product (rather than a repair).

jansh77

Thanks Jakg,

Yes that is was the advisor explained also which is why they asked for the extra detail so I explained about the height of the stand and the type of floor. Unfortunately that's all I can really add and I'm worried they might still look for an excuse to avoid honouring the insurance, in which case I wanted to know what the next steps could be. Thanks for all responses!

Esqui

It's normally sorted out - bear in mind that the repair centre have nothing to go on other than the reported fault, which might not contain all the information.

Last week, I booked in a laptop which had been damaged by someone falling down the stairs whilst carrying it, and it had hit the wall when they were going down. They had the bruises to prove it, but all the repair centre saw was "fell down stairs" or something similar. And a laptop that has simply fallen down the stairs wouldn't be bent on one corner (where they hit the wall), which made them think it was excessive damage. It'll be sorted anyway.

Guardsman

Would it not have cost far less if you insured it on the TV or Video: Accidental Damage policy with your contents insurance ?

jansh77

Thanks for the reassurance Esqui, time will tell!

Guardsman - I didn't own a home at the time and my parents would be reluctant to claim on their home insurance incase of raised premiums. In all honesty I didn't calculate how much it would cost as the sales advisor encouraged me to buy the insurance purely so he could reduce the price of the TV! I decided to keep paying it because I thought it would be useful, apparently not!

McKneff

Was it pushed,

Things that heavy dont just 'fall from a shelf' there has to be some kind of contact or the shelf came down as well

jansh77

The shelf stayed intact it was just the TV that fell. In all honesty I'm pretty sure the kids either threw something at it or knocked the shelf and it wobbled off the shelf.

dacouch

As a side note it's not an Insurance Policy

spacey2012

You could have bought a new TV with what you have paid.

visidigi

spacey2012 wrote: »

You could have bought a new TV with what you have paid.

Can you stop posting such rubbish in here?

How is that constructive to the issue at hand?