Contents insurance witha police caution

Corelli

Hello,

I am looking to get contents insurance and the online application forms all ask if anyone in the house has convictions or cautions.

Over five years ago I received a caution. It's a long sad story that I don't feel a need to go into here, specificaly I am wondering if I need to declare this. From my googling it looks as though for insurance purposes spent convictions and cautions do not need to be declared for insurance purposes, under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. Yet a couple of legal advice websites I found said that if the companies specifically ask about this the question must be answered.

Can anyone give me definitive advice?

Thanks

InsideInsurance

They will ask about "unspent" criminal convictions etc.

Normal cautions are spent immediately, conditional cautions are spent after 3 months.

Some things are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and require full disclosure irrespective of time but insurance isnt.

BertTheRaccoon

A caution is not a "conviction" as far as I am aware, although you do have to admit to the offence to receive a caution

Cornucopia

No offence to the OP, but we see this question a lot on MSE.

I'm wondering why people do not ask the Company concerned?

Corelli

Cornucopia wrote: »

No offence to the OP, but we see this question a lot on MSE.

I'm wondering why people do not ask the Company concerned?

Thanks to everyone who has responded. I did look to see if the question had been asked before, obviously not a very thorough search. Sorry.

Cornucopia, if I was to phone the company for a quote, and own up to a caution that I might not need to, I fear that the information would make them give me higher premiums than would otherwise have been the case.

Corelli

InsideInsurance wrote: »

They will ask about "unspent" criminal convictions etc.

Normal cautions are spent immediately, conditional cautions are spent after 3 months.

Some things are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and require full disclosure irrespective of time but insurance isnt.

Two companies I tried to apply to online asked about convictions and cautions, this was why I wondered, being aware of the ROA. Perhaps they ask, but are aware that people don't have to give this information?

dacouch

Corelli wrote: »

Thanks to everyone who has responded. I did look to see if the question had been asked before, obviously not a very thorough search. Sorry.

Cornucopia, if I was to phone the company for a quote, and own up to a caution that I might not need to, I fear that the information would make them give me higher premiums than would otherwise have been the case.

Ignore them, the regular posters on here do not mind answering this type of question frequently as there can be big differences between individual cases hence needing different answers.

P.S The Insurer could potentially get in a lot of trouble if they penalised you for a spent conviction. It's something they're not allowed to do.

InsideInsurance

Corelli wrote: »

Two companies I tried to apply to online asked about convictions and cautions, this was why I wondered, being aware of the ROA. Perhaps they ask, but are aware that people don't have to give this information?

They will ask about them but you only have to mention unspent one.

As per my previous post, normal cautions are immediately spent however a conditional caution is 3 months before its spent hence them asking about both convictions and cautions. Normally the help text will explicitly mention about RoA and "spent"