Was I refused to renew? Home Insurance

Disdain

Insurance refused to renew??? To put it simply, how can I be refused if I never asked for renewal - What I have actually been trying to do is understand why Esure would not quote me on gocompare but would quote me on their Esure website with insurance for the same house. In my opinion they could only say "well if you did ask then we would refuse" which is a much weaker position.

Now for the details:

Status 23 May 2013
I have a home insurance policy with Esure, it is due for renewal in three weeks and they sent me a renewal quote by Royal Mail.

Like every year I then checked on gocompare - filled in the missing data and got more quotes but Esure were not in the listed quotes (this appears to be because lastweek I found a "useful tool" on googlemaps where you could measure a straight line distance from my house through other houses to the local river, it came back with 355m), so I used 355m in the blank space in the gocompare form. I always edit last years form because it faithfully keeps your data and that special distance space was blank this year, if it was necessary to put a figure in there last year it would still have been there like other details for my house (my house does not relocate overnight).
I phoned Esure and after them talking with the Underwriter Esure said that my existing policy could continue to the end date but that they would not renew my insurance. As yet I have not asked them to renew anything so as far as I am concerned they have nothing to refuse, whereas I can refuse their postal quote or if they wish they can write to me and withdraw their postal quote. If they do not write to me before the deadline then they have lost their opportunity. As yet all I have done is to ask them why they will not quote via gocompare?

I was not happy with Esure trying to laud it over me, so I then went directly to the Esure website bypassing gocompare and filled in all the details, the only similar relevant question was "has the property ever flooded" and my answer was NO! nothing about distance from a river. I got to the end of the online quote where I could click and pay money if I wished to and again phoned Esure to ask why they would insure me via the website but earlier in the day they would not through gocompare. The underwriter was contacted again, this time the underwriter must have been squirming to try an get out of a problem and told Esure to respond that I had not followed their general assumptions because I had been refused insurance by the underwriter earlier in the day (I contend I had not been refused), first they would not quote on gocompare and then they would quote on the website) they still would not insure me. This means to me they would not renew my policy IF I asked.

I asked the Esure operator to go back to the underwriter and explain that one of the 40 houses next to me could innocently go to the Esure website and take out insurance because so far they had not been refused insurance. This means that for any house close to me the Esure website can trick the owner into taking insurance and then can sit back and if there ever is a claim Esure will say the property is less than 400m from a river so the insurance is null and void and all the owner can say is you never asked me how far away I was you only asked for my postcode and if I had ever been flooded.
When you give your house address they know exactly where your house is and can easily determine how far away any river might be, it is up to them to decide on that basis if they wish to insure you. If I lie about the address of the property then I will be insuring the wrong house - get it? they don't!

I was seperately advised that I now had to explain on every future insurance quote that I make that "an insurance company has refused to renew" (this whether it be motor, house, life or whatever). So this seems that Esure may have put a blight on my stain-free insurance record which is without any claim on my house insurance policy since 1974 (some 39 years). Whereas stupidly the underwriters take no account of height above river, I might live 401m from the river and it only be 5cm below my door step with a potential flood every year, or I could live on the edge of a ravine only 1m from the river course, but it is 350m below me and will never flood.

So you will understand that I am not a happy bunny possibly to be loaded on all future insurance policies because I learnt how to use the googlemaps measuring tool and continue to answer questions correctly.

I then asked to speak to an Esure manager and I made a verbal complaint to Esure and a supervisor is due to call me back within 48 hours.

After my complaint I then phoned another insurer and took out house insurance on my property, that insurer knows exactly where my house is in relation to rivers.

Next day: Update 24 May 2013
I was phoned by Stephen from Esure at about 10:15 am 24/05/2013, Stephen is an executive on the complaints team.
I was allowed to explain all the above points I also explained that in essence I was actually trying to help Esure, and that I was explaining to them their problems whilst spending my money on the phone that their website is misleading and does not mirror their underwriters conditions of insurance (regarding less that 400m from a river). So potential Esure web site home insurance policy purchasers BEWARE!
Stephen explained to me that all I had to do with other insurers was to explain that Esure would not insure properties less than 400m and would not renew a previous insurance that I had, this sounded very much to me that they still think they have refused to insure me. Wrong, they can think what they like and unless and until I ask them to renew it is impossible for them to refuse. Otherwise I can phone you up and refuse to clean your toilet, but also you did not ask.
Update 25 May 2013
At 10:42 am I got an email from Esure informing me that the quote I had done on line via the Esure website the previous day was valid and that I could call and take the insurance - go figure!

The future as of 28 May 2013:
I refuse to consider to renew any policy with Esure as they are misleading and inconsistent in documentation and that I still feel victimised through no fault of my own.- Not only that - I will not be supporting any Esure product or any associate company's products for example Sheila's Wheels.

So my complaint is made they now have 8 weeks to advise, then the ombudsman comes into the picture.

Time will tell if the Esure website changes to reflect the conditions required by the Esure underwriters concerning property distance from a river.

rs65

Now that's a long post.

In summary, they declined to offer renewal and have now changed their mind and overturned the declinature.

What is the complaint to the ombudsman? What outcome do you want?

Sorry if I missed anything pertinent.

DCFC79

Just go with a different insurer.

dacouch

I recommend you cancel the current policy asap so they do not decline the renewal

Disdain

rs65 wrote: »

Now that's a long post.

In summary, they declined to offer renewal and have now changed their mind and overturned the declinature.

What is the complaint to the ombudsman? What outcome do you want?

Sorry if I missed anything pertinent.

Did they decline or refuse? Did they change their mind? The actual words in the Esure assumptions are "had home insurance cancelled, refused or renewal refused". Esure consider that I had renewal refused as that was their reply when I pointed out that they would offer me insurance on the Esure website but not through gocompare as I had not informed them of a deviation to their assumptions before filling in the Esure website and before they offered the quote.

Thing is: the website is disconnected from reality. eg 'Questions on the Esure website do not match Esure's Underwriters requirements'. Therefore I guess the email "last quote" received approx. 1 day after filling in the Esure website will not be honoured by Esure as they will say they already refused over the phone previously, whereas I say "If I did not ask how can they refuse?"

The ombudsman will be contacted if Esure do not change their website and/or I am not satisfied with the result of my complaint. Think of this : How many other people have been or will come into this situation and must therefore advise every future insurer of a previous 'Esure refusal', when the legal technicalities of necessary prior request and subsequent refusal have not been complied with.

Disdain

DCFC79 wrote: »

Just go with a different insurer.

Yes, I did.

Disdain

dacouch wrote: »

I recommend you cancel the current policy asap so they do not decline the renewal

Now I really like this advice. BUT first I must find out if there are cancellation fees with Esure. Thanks

Just checked and to cancel an Esure policy after the initial 14 days and before end of policy is £55 so I don't think I will pay them more money to victimise me, but anyway a good idea!

weejonnie

This is probably a direct result of the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and representations Act) 2012. Under this act insurers can only void or alter the terms of a policy if they receive a 'misrepresentation' from the customer. On the website they did not ask you about the distance to the river - so they cannot turn down a claim if it turns out that the distance is less than they would normally have picked and you met the requirements of all the questions that they did ask. On the aggregator an additional question was used (distance from river) so they could use the information to decline to quote (which doesn't matter in regard to the 'have you had insurance declined...' etc)

If your renewal letter doesn't ask you to tell them how far the property is away from the river then you are under no obligation to do so and they would have had to accept your renewal. (Warning here for other readers - insurance renewal letters are now asking for a lot more information to be provided to them before they confirm renewal premiums.) Whether they could decline to accept the renewal once you had volunteered the extra information will no doubt be settled by case law in due course. However a general rule must be: answer truthfully but you don't have to volunteer anything that may concern you. (This principle does not apply to commercial or business related insurance - for those policies uberrima fides still applies)

This is academic, as I realise you have effected insurance elsewhere, but illustrates the problems that customers (and insurers) have when quotes are obtained from a multitude of sources.