Home insurance claim

Wavydavy101

Our house was involved in a fire, July 2020. It is not finalised yet but we suspect our insurers will only pay approx 75% of our contents claim. We took out over £54000 of contents, the feeling is they will offer us ~£40k. We took out new for old cover and there were exceptions in the policy for clothing and other named articles. I am comfortable with this as it was written down. I feel that having to settle for making a deal when it not explicitly mentioned in the policy is mis-selling. This is not putting us back in the position in which we found ourselves in before the fire. When taking out a policy, the advise is to go around the house and tot up all of your possessions and furniture etc.  What they don’t say is that it doesn’t matter what you pay for in the policy you will only get 75% back. Our neighbours, also impacted by the fire, have had similar treatment. 

How can they get away with this travesty? If it is not clear in the policy how the claim will be settled then this must be an unfair contractual term.  There are no disclaimers warning you of this. 

user1977

Your post isn't very clear. Why are they only paying 75%?

Aretnap

It's not obvious whether you are looking for advice or just having a rant.

If you're looking for advice perhaps you could give us some detail that we can work with, such as what you have claimed for that they haven't paid out for, and what reason they have given for not paying out.

Sandtree

It is very hard to mis-sell a non-advised sale product.

Whilst venting your spleen can be therapeutic others cannot provide help unless you clearly state the basis of the issue. Insurers will pay out the full value of items less the excess if you can evidence what's been lost, have correctly declared the contents value and accept the insurers settlement method.

If they offer vouchers but you want cash, you've declared the contests to be £54,000 but its really £72,000 etc then all these things will result in a reduction in settlement. In large losses a lot comes down to consistency... if half your wardrobe was lost and all thats left is Primark but you claim all that was lost was Chanel, Hermes etc but no receipts or photos etc then they'll challenge.