Contents insurer offers 249 to replace 825 TV

InsideInsurance

antrobus wrote: »

ONS data does suggest that the price of televisions fell by 30% over the years 2008-13. So if one purchased a TV for £825 in 2008, you would expect to pay around £550 for an equivalent in 2014.

Check how ONS works, presumably they didnt decide in the 90s to select a specific model of TV and are still pricing that same model today.

So a top of the range TV has fallen by 30% wouldnt mean that the OP would expect to get 30% less than they paid because not only have the prices dropped but the specifications have gone up and so the settlement would be futher down as what was top of the range is now middle of the range.

Like for like replacement is about specifications - screen size, resolution, refresh rate etc - and not about its relativity in the range of the TVs currently available. If that was the case then the settlement should be about 1.5k given the top of the range TV now will be a 4k or OLED beast depending on which of the two paths you consider to be the top of the range.

RichyBaby

I was initially asking for 650 but will settle for 450 to get this over and done with. I have already sourced and purchased a new TV (529 as opposed to the 729 one I wanted). It has a higher spec, hence accepting 450 instead of 650.

So far, insurer is not interested in negotiating. I am sure they are relying on me going to the ombudsman and just wasting my time before the ombudsman finds in their favour.

In my experience, the ombudsman serves the insurer. We claimed with them after our pet insurer refused to reinsure our pet and we could ot get him insured elsewhere. Result was that our pet had 1/2 as many vet visits because we couldn't afford them. Ombudsman eventually ordered insurer to pay back our bills. So the crooked insurer (JLT Online) won out because they saved on all the visits we didn't and couldn't afford to make.

So as you can imagine, my opinion of the ombudsman is pretty low.

R

Quentin

Your experience shows the FOS don't favour the insurer (and have you read #3) But a complaint pressed all the way to the FOS does take a long time to be concluded.


Your fundamental problem isn't the FOS but the insurer you chose to insure your home with!

dacouch

Was the offer the Insurer made you a "Cash" offer rather than them arranging a replacement at that value?

irishjohn

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Arent you contradicting yourself? Of cause they want to replace it with a brand new machine of equal spec. As per you comments your old tv has no wifi, hdmi, usb and was SD. Replacing that with a brand new set just means buying the cheapest thing they can find and it'll still be over that specification.

What they dont say is if you had a top of the range tv we will buy you a new top of the range tv. Its all about the spec and the problem is that companies, particularly TV and camera, come up with snake oil type spec as each year must be better than the last when the majority dont make a blind bit of difference to the actual picture quality.

What I mean is that it is unlikely the OP had much in the way of any of these facilities on the broken TV and therefore it is impossible for the Insurance company to match this unless they provide a second hand television. I believe they are being commercially aware and offering a reasonable payment towards a replacement. I would go further to say that the OP seems to want to be provided with a brand new top spec television at no cost at all despite having had his television which had become quite dated and was probably due for replacement anyway.

irishjohn

RichyBaby wrote: »

So, if my house is burgled and everything stolen will all my top spec devices be replaced by cheap rubbish?

Essentially, I think you are telling me that 249 is as good as it is going to get? Or am I missing something?

thanks

R

I am saying £249 is a reasonable contribution towards replacing a television which is now 6 years old

InsideInsurance

irishjohn wrote: »

What I mean is that it is unlikely the OP had much in the way of any of these facilities on the broken TV and therefore it is impossible for the Insurance company to match this unless they provide a second hand television.

Which is why they tend to offer a fairly low replacement with the argument is that its a step up because it now has wifi and iPlayer etc.

The problem is that some of these features are important and some of them are just snake oil. What "feature" is always unquantified is the actual quality of the panel itself which will make much more difference in picture quality than if the screen has a 200mhz or 300mhz refresh rate. A top of the range set from 6 years ago is actually likely to have a better panel than a bottom of the range one today. In the core system there hasnt been that greater improvement unless you get into OLED (or to some peoples thinking 4k resolution)

As you cannot quantify screen quality though you have to fall back on the marketing material type specifications to argue the point.

irishjohn wrote: »

I am saying £249 is a reasonable contribution towards replacing a television which is now 6 years old

I think the OP is really here to just vent their spleen rather than actually looking for help as they are avoiding all the important questions. Which is fine but makes these side discussion more difficult.

If it wasnt a new for old policy then £249 would be fine but 99% of home insurance is new for old in which case its necessary to know what the OP original had. On the basis of price alone it doesnt sound like a top of the range TV at all as these consistently tend to be over £1k but of cause they could have gotten an amazing deal which is why model number is more relevant than original purchase price. It equally could have been a low range TV that was massively overpriced.

StuC75

Why not post details of the spec of what was broken, and see what others can suggest as a current price for such a specificiation?

trukdiver

RichyBaby wrote: »

A few weeks ago, the TV was damaged during a stupid ball game in the lounge. I was surprised to learn that our contents insurance covered the TV and was very happy, thinking that we would get a "like for like" replacement and be reinstated with a high spec TV like the damaged one.

How damaged was it? Wasn't it possible to repair it so you would be back in the position you were in before the accident?

or did you see the TV ad and decided you wanted a subsidised upgrade?

RichyBaby

The damaged TV is model LE40M87BD.

It has VGA PC input that I need because our lounge computer connects to it.

The replacement they offer is an inch smaller. I am not having that.

R