Halifax Home Insurance Issues

hotbaws

Hi All,

Looking for some advise regarding an issue that we've just discovered with own home insurance which we've had with the Halifax for the last 10+ years.

My wife was looking for some advise on personal indemnity cover so was going to call Halifax regarding a possible claim after talking with them.

Now this is where it got interesting as when looking for the policy details when only had the letter from 2010 when we moved into our current house with all the policy details, direct debit details, price etc but I knew I'd had an email in the past which I saved in my phone with the policy details which I dug out and we compared to the one on the paperwork which was different so I then checked the online banking and the Halifax policy reference which was the one i had from the email.

My wife called the Halifax and after giving all the necessary information and answering the security questions which including our address and postcode she gave the policy number from the paperwork from 2010 the lady advised that policy wasn't on the system so my wife gave the other policy number I found on the email to which she was told that was on the system but for our old house which we moved from 10 years ago!!!

My wife's asked how this could be possible since we have paperwork with all the details for our current home, policy number, direct debit statement etc and she was at a lost to explain....so it turns out we've paid just shy of 8k for home insurance on our old property and have never been insurance don our current home, luckily for us we've never ever had to make a claim.

The Halifax lady then proceeded to amend the policy to reflect our current home and advised us that our premium would increase from £64 a month to over £100 and best of all when she asked about No Claims Bonus (expecting to be told around 15 years) she was told that it was only 5 years as that's the maximum for this old policy.

I'm very unhappy with Halifax's handling of this issue and their attitude of expecting us to be happy with the outcome but as I reminded my wife that if we had needed to make a claim Halifax would have told us to get lost as our house wasn't insured with them leaving us exposed and only through luck we never had to claim.
To my mind there clearly has been a !!!! up at their end on their systems when they haven't updated it to reflect our change of address as we've got the relevant paperwork to show that should have happened but didn't and I wanted to ask what would you do if it was you?

Thanks for reading and excuse my moaning

Cheers

FutureGirl

You say you have paperwork for your current home - have you been receiving yearly renewal notices, and policy schedules?

If so, then I cannot see how they haven't amended the address. If not, then it is possible they haven't updated your address, however, given you moved 10 years ago, it's going to be difficult for you to prove that you did contact them to tell them you'd move, and it's be difficult for them to prove you didn't.

When you moved your premiums would have gone up straight away - did they?

Had you needed to make a claim, it's highly likely they would have honoured it.

hotbaws

FutureGirl wrote: »

You say you have paperwork for your current home - have you been receiving yearly renewal notices, and policy schedules?

If so, then I cannot see how they haven't amended the address. If not, then it is possible they haven't updated your address, however, given you moved 10 years ago, it's going to be difficult for you to prove that you did contact them to tell them you'd move, and it's be difficult for them to prove you didn't.

When you moved your premiums would have gone up straight away - did they?

Had you needed to make a claim, it's highly likely they would have honoured it.

I have the original Halifax paperwork for our ‘new’ 10 year old policy at our current address, so Halifax issued us with a ‘new’ Policy Number and sent it to current our address of 10 years.

They’ve taken payment ever month for the last ten years.

No we never got monthly/annual statements as they would have been getting posted to our old address which we moved from 10 years ago to our current one. We should have queried this but as we never need to place a claim it was never anything we really paid any attention to.

I’m surprised you would have expected Halifax to honour a claim and pay out if it would have been required as they told my wife they couldn’t find the policy which we have the paperwork for that they issued to the correct address on their system.

dacouch

From the information you have given us, it would be very unusual for Halifax not to honour your claims.

It sounds like the other address was a cheaper area premium wise so it looks like you have saved money over the period.

A well worded, polite and concise complaint letter is likely to result in an apology and a compensation payment of upto £250 I would estimate.

In the long run you will have saved money, you will save even more money by keeping on top of your Insurance and ensuring you have a good deal from now on

tempus_fugit

Well, this is strange, because we had a similar issue with Halifax. We moved house in January and a few weeks in advance I told them of the new address and even asked if we were covered for contents during the move. They said that we would be covered automatically as long as we used accredited removers. I confirmed that we would be doing so. I then gave them the new address and they charged us extra for the new address.

Fast forward to July and our renewal came in to the current address, but the policy details showed the old house details. We phoned them up and they said yes it looks like there was a mistake, so they noted the new address and then said it would cost us an extra £2.97. We queried why there was another additional payment and they said it's because of the new address, which I understand, but then what was the extra payment in January for? They couldn't answer this, which is a little concerning. Anyway, as it is we have not renewed with them as in addition to this the premium has doubled, and we took up an offer from another company, but this does make me wonder what Halifax are up to with charging us in January but not changing the policy, then charging us again when we tell them to amend the policy.