Contents insurance claim for badly broken Apple laptop - many issues and possible insurer fraud...

TSx · 14 June 2020 at 8:21AM

dacouch said:

TELLIT01 said:

Does 'new for old' mean replacing like for like, or will and insurer really replace a 5 year old laptop with a nice shiny top spec new one? If the latter I think I can hear the sound of thousands of old laptops falling from the grasp of people stood at the top of a long flight of stairs.

To replace it like for like it would not need to be a top spec machine, it's likely with the the way technology advances it would be a bottom spec machine but from the same manufacturer eg Apple and with the same specifications eg memory and power as the previous model as a minimum

In the case of Apple, it's going to be a shiny new machine (if it can't be repaired). Apple are very good at getting old stock out of the system, so it's unlikely you'll be able to find a new model that matches the one from 5 years ago. They currently do a 13 inch and a 16 inch model, the base specs have significantly increased over the past 5 years. With a normal laptop, yes there's huge depreciation in that period - with Mac, you'll be getting essentially a top of the range one because they don't do cheap laptops. When I dealt with household claims, Apple items were the top items for fraud by quite a distance, primarily because of this.

In terms of the original poster, I can't quite follow what has happened but if the insurer is saying they can replace the bottom panel for £110.10 - and MacBooks are usually very repairable because of their high price - then that is all you are entitled to, even if someone made a mistake and said you should get a replacement. You might not feel comfortable with their repairers but that doesn't change anything.

winder29 · 14 June 2020 at 11:15AM

Thanks for the responses.

An equivalent new MBP (at least same spec) would be around £3k, as it was a top of the line machine when new.

What happened here is the repairer seems to have lied to both me and my insurer - they told me it could be repaired then failed to fully repair it, as they don’t repair or replace bottom panels. They told my insurer that they were going to replace the laptop with a new one as it couldn’t be repaired.

I was assured at that point by my insurer by letter that I would receive the full payment amount or an equivalent new MBP from the repairer, which has since devolved into a settlement offer of £110.50 to close the claim.

The insurer now suggests that £110.50 is the cost to repair the apparently non-fixable remaining damage. Accepting their offer would close my claim.

I no longer have any contact with the repair company, but at first they denied there was any non-repaired damage, then said they do not fix this specific damage, then that they would need to look at it and couldn’t warranty anything they hadn’t repaired, then said they would charge for anything else.

In the first place; when they lied to me, they said that the laptop would be ‘as-new.

I contacted the insurer after, who told me the laptop was definitely going to be replaced in line with their correspondence with the repair company.

I assume it’s unrepairable due to the factory stamped identity codes being unique to the specific laptop which are present on the panel.

TSx · 14 June 2020 at 11:36AM

Follow the insurer's complaints process then (and escalate to the Financial Ombudsman if you've had a final decision) - but you will probably find that the ombudsman award £50-100 for compensation (for the poor communication) and tell you to get the laptop repaired if that's now what the repair company are saying. It definitely is possible to replace the bottom case on a MacBook Pro.