Home Insurance Cancelled By Insurer

Dariog

Hi,

I was broken into last year, 19th Nov.
On Monday the 20th I accepted a quote from Moneysupermarket for new insurance as it was coming up, at this point I had not claimed anything on my existing policy.
When I realized I could claim for locks to be changed, and began to realize what had been taken I called my previous insurer and lodged a claim.
Now, I tried to claim on the new policy a few months ago for storm damage and have had the claim rejected and policy cancelled for not disclosing an "event".
It seems now I cant get new insurance either as it asks you if to confirm you never had a policy cancelled.

What do I do? Its an honest oversight for an unrelated claim and it seems I am screwed for ever.

InsideInsurance

Not only for your Home insurance but also motor and most of your other personal insurances that you must declare the cancellation to.

First of all, check the cancellation is correct and that they did ask about "events" and not "claims".

Assuming the cancellation is correct then talk to a local broker, not swintons, or google for the few insurers that specialise in the sub prime market

[Deleted User]

You need to make a complaint and contact the Ombudsman. This kind of relatively minor mistake that is clearly not an attempt at fraud should not result in your insurance being cancelled. At most you might be asked to pay a little more.

Don't, whatever you do, accept it being cancelled. It will mess things up badly for you, so you need to fight it.

Spikey1

Apart from the incident on 19th Nov.....which you didn't disclose....had you disclosed any other incidents at all ?

dacouch

DELETED USER wrote:

You need to make a complaint and contact the Ombudsman. This kind of relatively minor mistake that is clearly not an attempt at fraud should not result in your insurance being cancelled. At most you might be asked to pay a little more.

Don't, whatever you do, accept it being cancelled. It will mess things up badly for you, so you need to fight it.

The Insurers are perfectly entitled to void a policy from inception if they would not have accepted a customer had they known the correct information at the start of the policy.

A large number of Insurers would not accept a new client who had claimed for a break in or who had been the subject of a break in and had not claimed

lisyloo

A large number of Insurers would not accept a new client who had claimed for a break in

Really?
So you are unlucky enough to have a break-in and dare to claim (I thought that was what insurance was for) you then can't get insurance again without a great deal of difficulty?

The industry ought to be forced to treat customers fairly.
Claiming shouldn't make you an outcast.

Airlines can't discriminate against people (like "difficult" wheelchair users) simply because they don't want their business.
The industry needs a shake-up.

dacouch

lisyloo wrote: »

Really?
So you are unlucky enough to have a break-in and dare to claim (I thought that was what insurance was for) you then can't get insurance again without a great deal of difficulty?

The industry ought to be forced to treat customers fairly.
Claiming shouldn't make you an outcast.

Airlines can't discriminate against people (like "difficult" wheelchair users) simply because they don't want their business.
The industry needs a shake-up.

The majority of Insurers will not accept a new customer who has had a break in claim within the last few years. Some will accept if a year or two has passed and / or the claim was relatively small.

The reason being someone who has been the subject of a break in is many times more likely to be broken into again for a number of reasons.

The wheel chair and airline example has no bearing as your example is due to specific statute

Dariog

Spikey1 wrote: »

Apart from the incident on 19th Nov.....which you didn't disclose....had you disclosed any other incidents at all ?

No I didnt, I didnt have anything else to disclose.

rs65

OP, it would help if you put some dates to this.

Broken into 19th Nov 2013
Accepted quote Monday 20th - January ?

When did the old policy expire?
When did the new policy start?

When did you make the claim for locks etc?

When did the storm happen?
When did you make the storm claim?

Quentin

When you find a new insurer apart from the robbery you must also disclose the storm damage too. (This will be on your history along with the cancellation)

Spikey1

Well it does sound that your new insurer had very strict acceptance criteria. Just the one theft claim was enough for them to say that they would not have allowed cover to proceed if you had told them about it. Who is the Insurer ?


Having said that, we don't know the value of the theft claim which you eventually made.....this could be influential. Are you prepared to say ?


I've got to say that you're on the back foot a bit here. The Insurer is sure to be sceptical over the reasons why you failed to disclose an incident which only happened the day before you got their quote. At best they will consider that to be 'unreasonable' on your part, at worst they may suspect that you have been dishonest. Sorry to say so fella but just so you appreciate the situation you are in.


If they asked you a CLEAR question about previous incidents (even if they didn't give rise to a claim) you are in a very difficult position.


HOWEVER, the Insurer is not allowed to treat you differently to their other customers so you should establish from them just what their acceptance criteria is. If it turns out that they would have granted your cover if you had told them about the incident...then they can't hold your non-disclosure against you.


Finally, and again just to outline the position you are in, as soon as you started pursuing payments under your theft claim with the old insurer, you had the opportunity of informing your new Insurer of this. I'd imagine that you had begun pursuing the theft claim either before or very shortly after your policy documentation from the new Insurer arrived. This documentation would have reminded you of your duty to check the information you had given them at the time of the quote and inform them of any errors/changes.


Best of luck with this