RSA home insurance

Angryhomeowner

Hi all we were recently burgled, they took over £10000 of jewellery and £4500 of tech items, consoles, games laptops etc, we rang the home insurance to put a claim in only to be told by Royal Sun Alliance, the underwriters that my jewellery was not covered under high risk which payed out up to £7500 but comes under personal which was £2000 & all the other items were not covered under contents but a sub section called tech which only pays £500!!!
Now we have contents cover of £50000 but they won't pay out on that, now we rang tesco who are also underwritten by RSA and they say jewellery is covered by high risk, up to £15000 & content cover all other items, eg laptops, consoles, phones etc, how can this be? We feel RSA are just using clauses to get out of paying the full amount And would like some feedback on how we can deal with this as we feel not only robbed by burglars but robbed by RSA too

Quentin

You deal with this by making a formal complaint. Their complaints procedure will be set out in the policy documents.


Then if you are unhappy with the reply (or they ignore you for 8 weeks) you can escalate the issue to the FOS for their adjudication at no cost to you.


(When you spoke to Tesco, did they confirm that their policy is identical to the one you bought?? If not, then their comments are regarding their product are irrelevant)

paddyandstumpy

Was the claim made from the home? It sounds like (based on the limited info above) that they are looking to pay the claim under the personal possessions section?
Whilst RSA were the underwriter, what brand was this sold under, so we can look at the wording. You mentioned Tesco, was that the product you bought?

TSx

I'm going to hazard a guess that this is a Select & Protect policy (ignore this post if I'm wrong) as they're the only company I'm aware of who provide a technology pack addon, and who don't cover jewellery under the standard contents cover (see key facts here here)

If you have only selected £500 cover under the technology pack, then that is the maximum they will pay. Likewise, they include jewellery under personal belongings and if you've only selected £2,000 under that section then that is the most they will pay.

RSA are correctly applying the policy limits to the claim so I can't agree that they've robbed you. The exclusions on this policy are certainly unusual but they are all listed in the key facts as unusual exclusions which is what the regulator would expect. They don't expect you to wade through the entire policy booklet to figure these out, they expect the insurer to highlight them - but I suspect they'd agree Select and Protect have done what they can to bring them to your attention.

The only recourse you may have is if you made the broker you purchased through aware of your requirements and they still sold you the policy - but you'd need to prove it. In that case, the complaint would be against the broker for mis-selling rather than the insurer.

Tesco have their own policy wording, so any comments about their wording is irrelevant - what matters is the wording for the policy you purchased.

dacouch

TSx wrote: »

The only recourse you may have is if you made the broker you purchased through aware of your requirements and they still sold you the policy - but you'd need to prove it. In that case, the complaint would be against the broker for mis-selling rather than the insurer.

.

Especially if you were already covered by a Broker under a different policy that provided cover for the items not covered by the RSA policy

paddyandstumpy

dacouch wrote: »

Especially if you were already covered by a Broker under a different policy that provided cover for the items not covered by the RSA policy

It depends if the Broker has acted in an advised or non advised capacity... If they presented the proposal to the OP, with the key facts, and without making a recommendation; I'd be comfortable arguing the onus is on the client to check suitability of the product. A non advised sale will make no recommendation and more often than not the Broker will just offer the cheapest product from their panel, regardless of cover.

I'm not saying this is right; I'm merely commenting this is fact and what happens.

csgohan4

Does the T+C have conditions to exclude your current claim? did you declare those expensive items? never assume


Perhaps you get what you pay for in Home insurance

FutureGirl

RSA will comply with the policy that you have.

It would depend if the items were stolen from your home, or if they were stolen away from your home IE if you took them on holiday with you. It would also depend on your particular policy that you have.

Did you buy the policy directly IE via comparison site etc or via a broker? What policy do you have?

When you phoned tesco they could be talking about a different policy, although RSA are the underwriters, each policy is different. It also depends when you took the policy out, as policies change over time.