Extremely urgent House insurance advice!

jStats

Hi, really need some urgent advice! 

Basically we’ve just moved house, the mortgage is in my wife’s name as I had bad credit from before I met her and we didn’t want the premium to be over excessive. 

So as we was moving our tv was dropped and broken, we put in a claim to our house insurers who in turn said I had a CCJ in my name from 2017 that I was unaware of, I’ve tried to contact The Business Centre but I can’t seem to find where I owe it from. They have said that we can’t claim for the TV because it is wasn’t declared, that’s not really an issue because we’ll just have to buy a new one.

The issue is that they are claiming that they will void our house insurance from the past, which they have said to turn will make our new house Insurance for the new property void, my wife is panicking because they have said if it’s void it will affect her credit rating and because we can’t get house insurance we will lose the house. 

Does anyone know what we need to do next, thank you.

dunstonh

The issue is that they are claiming that they will void our house insurance from the past, which they have said to turn will make our new house Insurance for the new property void, my wife is panicking because they have said if it’s void it will affect her credit rating and because we can’t get house insurance we will lose the house. 

Having a policy cancelled by the insurer for non-disclosure does not affect your wife's credit rating.  She should have no concerns on that point.

However, it will affect future premiums on many different types of insurance (including car insurance).    It will probably mean the end of the ability to use comparison sites.    Most will not offer terms for having a cancellation by the insurer or will automatically price it ridiculously high.       So, it would mean going back to a broker to get it who can place it with companies that look at the reasons and decide rather than a computerised yes/no decision.

You should also investigate the CCJ as its possible to get them removed if applied incorrectly (e.g. if you were not notified and the default outcome was to award the CCJ).  Getting it removed would sit favourably with insurers as you can say that you didn't know it existed and when you found out, you appealed it and it was successfully removed. 

jStats

dunstonh said:

The issue is that they are claiming that they will void our house insurance from the past, which they have said to turn will make our new house Insurance for the new property void, my wife is panicking because they have said if it’s void it will affect her credit rating and because we can’t get house insurance we will lose the house. 

Having a policy cancelled by the insurer for non-disclosure does not affect your wife's credit rating.  She should have no concerns on that point.

However, it will affect future premiums on many different types of insurance (including car insurance).    It will probably mean the end of the ability to use comparison sites.    Most will not offer terms for having a cancellation by the insurer or will automatically price it ridiculously high.       So, it would mean going back to a broker to get it who can place it with companies that look at the reasons and decide rather than a computerised yes/no decision.

You should also investigate the CCJ as its possible to get them removed if applied incorrectly (e.g. if you were not notified and the default outcome was to award the CCJ).  Getting it removed would sit favourably with insurers as you can say that you didn't know it existed and when you found out, you appealed it and it was successfully removed. 

Thank you. She’s a worrier by nature! 

Is the possibility of the claim completely gone, I have a feeling that the CCJ could have went to my parents house in 2017 and as I haven’t spoken to them in years it wouldn’t have be passed on to me. That’s the only thing I can think of, if the premium goes up it goes up there’s nothing we can do about that. But the insurers have given me until Friday to prove my address in February 2017 but I have no way as all my bills were in my old address before that because we hadn’t actually moved in, it’s all a bit of a nightmare to be honest. 

Sandtree

You need to look at the advice around CIDRA which is the law that covers the rules on disclosures for insurance and the consequences for non-disclosure.

The first point element is if the non-disclosure was intentional, reckless, accidental or innocent. The second point is what would have happened had she declared your CCJ when doing the quote. 

To have any grounds for reversing the decision you'd need to convince the insurer, or the ombudsman if that fails, that you were reasonably unaware of the CCJ. If they'd never have insured you had it been declared then its harder than if they would have but with a higher premium.

jStats

Sandtree said:

You need to look at the advice around CIDRA which is the law that covers the rules on disclosures for insurance and the consequences for non-disclosure.

The first point element is if the non-disclosure was intentional, reckless, accidental or innocent. The second point is what would have happened had she declared your CCJ when doing the quote. 

To have any grounds for reversing the decision you'd need to convince the insurer, or the ombudsman if that fails, that you were reasonably unaware of the CCJ. If they'd never have insured you had it been declared then its harder than if they would have but with a higher premium.

It was definitely unintentional, I wasn’t aware of it so my wife 100% would have had no idea, do you have any advice on what my wife could say on the phone tomorrow? I genuinely have no idea how to approach it. Thank you.

Sandtree

jStats said:

Sandtree said:

You need to look at the advice around CIDRA which is the law that covers the rules on disclosures for insurance and the consequences for non-disclosure.

The first point element is if the non-disclosure was intentional, reckless, accidental or innocent. The second point is what would have happened had she declared your CCJ when doing the quote. 

To have any grounds for reversing the decision you'd need to convince the insurer, or the ombudsman if that fails, that you were reasonably unaware of the CCJ. If they'd never have insured you had it been declared then its harder than if they would have but with a higher premium.

It was definitely unintentional, I wasn’t aware of it so my wife 100% would have had no idea, do you have any advice on what my wife could say on the phone tomorrow? I genuinely have no idea how to approach it. Thank you.

My suggestion would be to first of all find out what the CCJ is about... your credit history file will have the court number and case number to enable you to find out plus how much its for. You can then explain how you got a CCJ whilst being unaware of it and hopefully not sound as if you are reckless (eg leaving your car registered at an old address and hence parking company got a CCJ against you)

Smithcom

jStats said:

Hi, really need some urgent advice! 

Basically we’ve just moved house, the mortgage is in my wife’s name as I had bad credit from before I met her and we didn’t want the premium to be over excessive. 

So as we was moving our tv was dropped and broken, we put in a claim to our house insurers who in turn said I had a CCJ in my name from 2017 that I was unaware of, I’ve tried to contact The Business Centre but I can’t seem to find where I owe it from. They have said that we can’t claim for the TV because it is wasn’t declared, that’s not really an issue because we’ll just have to buy a new one.

The issue is that they are claiming that they will void our house insurance from the past, which they have said to turn will make our new house Insurance for the new property void, my wife is panicking because they have said if it’s void it will affect her credit rating and because we can’t get house insurance we will lose the house. 

Does anyone know what we need to do next, thank you.

You should consider cancelling the policy before insurers do

A cancelled policy against your record is very bad news

You should also take advice regards non-disclosure.    If you/your partner was unaware of the CCJ,  you may not have done anything wrong, and your should explore the rules if CIDRA  (Consumer Insurance Disclosure and Representation Act)

I would recommend that you act quickly

SC