Storage insurance mis-selling

horacewimp

We've just stored two thirds of our household goods at Safestore, as we sold our house and have rented a smaller place while we find somewhere permanent. Safestore charge us £65 per month (on top of the nearly £200 rental fee) for £10,000 of insurance. I researched a cheaper quote online and was quoted £6.90 per week for the same sum assured. However, Safestore's company policy is that you can only use their own insurance. This sounds like mis-selling to me. How can they possibly justify preventing you from making your own insurance arrangements (as Yellow Box and others do) and instead insist you pay 3 times as much for the same cover? Presumably they're getting a huge kickback. Interestingly we were paying about £200 per year for contents AND buildings cover when the stuff was at home, and we're now being asked to pay nearly £800 per year for contents only, when presumably the risk is minimal. Has anyone else encountered this? Would we have a leg to stand on legally if we took it up with the Office of Fair Trading or the Association of British Insurers?

rs65

I'm not sure it can be regarded as mis-selling. On what grounds?

Its a contractual term that the OFT may be interested in. I doubt the ABI would be interested.

You may not have a choice of insurer but you do have a choice of storage company.

agrinnall

I can't comment on whether it could be regarded as mis-selling or not, but it sounds like your research was pretty poor before settling on Safestore - if other companies do insurance differently, and their combined cost of storage and insurance is lower why didn't you choose one of them?

Oh, and I doubt whether the OFT or ABI will be interested, given that insurance is a financial product your complaint would have to be addressed to the Financial Ombudsman Service (after completing Safestore's - or their insurer's - complaints process first).

horacewimp

Hhmm, I seem to have confused the MSE site with a forum for apologists for corporate sharp practice.:(

Yes, agree, research in this case was not great. Exceptional circumstances but a long story.

However, if for example no-one had challenged the legal but questionable practice of selling PPI policies to people who didn't really need them, then nothing would have been done about it.

Clearly, Safestore lose nothing if customers arrange their own insurance (as long as they can prove they're covered), except of course the back-hander they presumably get from the insurers.

Is there anyone out who thinks companies shouldn't get away with unreasonable charges just because it's in their small print and isn't actually illegal?

I may be confused but I thought MSE had a name for campaigning for a fair deal for the consumer, not just telling the victims to be a bit more careful next time.

rs65

horacewimp wrote: »

Hhmm, I seem to have confused the MSE site with a forum for apologists for corporate sharp practice.:(

No, you've just asked the question in the insurance forum.

The issue you have seems to be contractual. Perhaps try the consumer rights part of the forum or maybe housebuying, selling etc?

As I said above, I doubt the ABI would be interested but maybe the OFT.

Do you have any paperwork about the insurance? Does it mention about them being FCA (or FSA) registered?

eddddy

Hi horacewimp

If you're saying that Safestore advertise prices (and/or give quotes) which do not make it clear that a compulsory insurance fee will be added, I guess that's worth reporting to the OFT. (I guess it would be analogous to the budget airlines who advertised ticket prices which excluded compulsory fees.)

The OFT may reprimand them, or even prosecute them, but that alone wouldn't make the contract you signed invalid, and you wouldn't be due any compensation.

In the case of PPI mis-selling, policies were sold which were unsuitable, and to ineligible customers - so there was a mountain of failed claims etc. So if the Safestore policy is unsuitable for you, or you are ineligible for it's cover, you may have grounds for complaint.

The fact that it is much more expensive than other similar policies isn't really grounds for a complaint to any official body.

magpiecottage

According to the Financial Services register, Safestore Limited is not permitted to arrange insurances.

However, according to its website, the insurance is provided by Royal & Sun Alliance - so I suppose that is who you would need to complain to.

archiepea

Hi HELP My brother-in-law, who is disabled, has had trouble with Safestore charges rocketing. He has used a unit for a long time. We are trying to sort things out. I desperately need to see a copy of a Safestore contract from around 2004?? Would anyone be able to mail me a copy of one for comparison??? (personal details scrubbed out, of course.) Thanks

imoneyop

archiepea wrote: »

Hi HELP My brother-in-law, who is disabled, has had trouble with Safestore charges rocketing. He has used a unit for a long time. We are trying to sort things out. I desperately need to see a copy of a Safestore contract from around 2004?? Would anyone be able to mail me a copy of one for comparison??? (personal details scrubbed out, of course.) Thanks

What guarantee do you have that the contract supplied by a random person on the Internet (in the unlikely event that someone actually sends you one) would match the contract that your brother signed?

It is his contract that you need to see - I assume that he didn't think it was important enough to keep.

You could try a SAR under the DPA and see what they send you - will cost you/your brother £10.

archiepea

We do have a copy of a contract which they have given us (2004) but it seems to include the recommendations of the 2008 SSA, which seems a little strange.

We would just like to see what another 2004-style contract looked like for comparison.

We are also going to go down the SAR route to get more information.

Thanks

PasturesNew

No idea what you can do about that - but it's often cheaper to rent a house with a spare bedroom and put your stuff in there, than it is to store at self-storage if you've got a lot of stuff.
Certainly worth doing the maths