I feel sick

Goosie154

This is my first posting although i have read mse for years. It concerns my girlfriends house insurance. She has been with lve for years and in 2006 following a record hot summer our house showed signs of a few cracks on the wall. We phoned the insurance company up. They sent out surveyers who monitored it for 8 months. Agreed it wasnt moving any more but put a pin in the wall and took out an oak tree some 25m away from the property. Every year since lve have hiked the premium (£299 currently) and so this year when we got an email from compare the market.com saying that we could save money with them. I completed the online quote details and declared the subsidence and repair work. The quote came back from Admiral saying £193. I telephoned lve and explained that we had a cheaper quote from admiral they said that they couldnt match it and offered to cancel the policy. My girlfriend said that we would be going with admiral. I clicked the compare the market buy me button and it took me to a call centre number. I gave them the quote ref number but they say that they wont insure unless we provide a full structual engineers report at our own cost. I phoned lve back and they wont insure us. I feel physically sick. I had tried to help out the girlfriend with the best of intentions but i have just given lve the out they needed to drop us like a hot potato. Any suggestions are gratefully received.

Quentin

You have burnt your boats by cancelling your existing policy.

See if a local broker(not swinton) can help with insurers happy to have you with a history of subsidence.

Goosie154

Hi Quentin
Thanks for your post. Thats exactly what i was afrad of. My only hope Is there a cooling off period for cancellations but ive never heard of one. Surely the lady at lve should had warned me before offering to cancel the policy but i suppose they wanted to get rid of us.
Goosie154

Quentin

Your argument is with admiral if anybody.

You cancelled your existing policy of your own free will!

Goosie154

I understand what youre saying and yes i do feel foolish and frankly ashamed. I have fouled things up badly but it would only be my own free will, if i was in possesion of all of the facts before I made that decision. If i had been aware of that we wouldnt get insured again, i would have just told her to stump up the premium. How can good intentions end so badly? I will take tommorow off and try and mend the damage i caused by phoning around specialist brokers. Thanks again

rs65

Why not get a structural engineers report?

oldbaldman

Who's name was the existing policy in?

Are you or were you authorised to cancel or amend the policy?

obm

Bantex_2

Why cancel the existing policy before confirming a start date with the new one?

dacouch

Goosie154 wrote: »

I understand what youre saying and yes i do feel foolish and frankly ashamed. I have fouled things up badly but it would only be my own free will, if i was in possesion of all of the facts before I made that decision. If i had been aware of that we wouldnt get insured again, i would have just told her to stump up the premium. How can good intentions end so badly? I will take tommorow off and try and mend the damage i caused by phoning around specialist brokers. Thanks again

LV would not know how Admiral would handle this type of situation.

If LV had warned you that once you cancel their policy they won't offer cover again you would still have cancelled their policy.

Have you tried writing a polite letter to LV explaining the circumstances?

oldbaldman

If I understand the situation correctly your GF has no insurance on the house? If so, then regardless of what happens you will both face the cost of repairing or rebuilding in the event of incident.

Does she have a mortgage on it?

I understand that you would like to reinstate the Lve insurance but I would consider getting some cover now even if it means excluding subsidence, especially as you have been told that the subsidences issue has settled.

obm

Yorkie1

oldbaldman wrote: »

Who's name was the existing policy in?

Are you or were you authorised to cancel or amend the policy?

obm

This is an avenue worth exploring, albeit perhaps clutching at straws. If you're not the policy holder, and your girlfriend hasn't formally authorised you to speak to the insurance company, and your girlfriend didn't actually deal with the company to cancel the insurance, there may just be an argument, perhaps.