When is a storm not a storm? When you have insurance from Sheilas Wheels

Sandtree

jimbo6977 said:

Will SW allow anyone to see "their" data? Maybe they have no data, that way they never have to pay a claim!

Yes, and its "their" as in their chosen source not that they have set up their own meteorological recording stations all over the uk... many use the likes of WeatherNet that provide their services to a range of industries 

jimbo6977

No conspiracy theory.

The validity of the OP's claim (among many thousands of others one would suppose) is dependent on data controlled by their insurer.

It would be interesting to see what data the insurer has, so that we could maybe see how detailed and relevant it is. 

They can't have an anemometer on everyone's roof, so at what level of detail would a dataset be regarded as being applicable to any potential claimant's address? 

Annemos

https://www.weathernet.co.uk/who-we-are.php


This company owns them: 

Claims Handling - Claims Consortium Group - Home


Jimbo, there is a certain inevitability to this. But as consumers, we are learning more and more about all these companies. 


(Climate Change: I reckon before long, the policies will say that the winds have to exceed 75mph AND at least 75 per cent of the roof has to have blown off AND it has to have dropped at least 200 meters away from your home. And even then, that implies that the roof was not installed properly anyway and shoddy workmanship is not covered. Oh and your excess is 5,000 pounds, too.) 

Sandtree

Annemos said:

Jimbo, there is a certain inevitability to this. But as consumers, we are learning more and more about all these companies. 

And what exactly have you learnt? That there are companies that are set up to provide services into the insurance industry? Better hold on to your seat because there are companies set up to provide services into every industry

chrisw

They seem to be being reasonable sending out a surveyor to assess the problem. You need to await the outcome of his report. If you disagree with the findings you can always get your own report to challenge it and pass this on to the ombudsman.

Annemos

I meant this, Sandtree......

What we are learning with the help of this site.........  please remember that homeowners start out as complete non-experts.

Insurance policies are such a revelation for us and how they actually work in practice. Also I think that people perhaps do not always realise what the exact ramification of any damage will be to them when an insurance event occurs. 

The Insurance Industry is indeed a business and has ways to limit its own losses. I wonder if consumers are really reading every definition in depth. It should actually be the first thing one does before one takes out the policy.

With the storm damage, for example, when we look at companies: 

If you look at SAGA and Churchill policies, I cannot see that there is such a precise definition of STORM in their policies w.r.t. 55mph. And someone said on here before that one would have more chance of being paid out if that definition is NOT given. 

So does that mean that anybody who lives in the areas that are more susceptible to storms in the West or North perhaps, should only use companies with policies like these where the definition of a storm is NOT given? 

I looked at E-sure and Sheila's Wheels and one other one and the 55mph is indeed in those policies. (Maybe those ones should say they are cover for Tempest and Flood damage to distinguish themselves?!) 


Also this is really important for people to know, because the Claims Handlers get inundated with storm claims and if folks are not informed about all this, the Claims Handlers might end up having lots of aggravation with customers and more claims that get denied. 

Sandtree

Annemos said:

The Insurance Industry is indeed a business and has ways to limit its own losses. I wonder if consumers are really reading every definition in depth. It should actually be the first thing one does before one takes out the policy.

I don't think you need to wonder, 99% of people fall into one of two camps... they buy on price alone (overly encouraged by sites like this rather than considering value) or they blindly auto-renew every year paying little/no regard to the important information leaflets that come through that highlights changes to the policy.

Its a small minority that actually looks at the policy book and even smaller that reads the whole thing... even I will look for the deal breaker type elements such as Tenants Improvements or Matching Sets when it comes to Home insurance which is actually a fairly complex product.

As to your point on Storm then absolutely, if something is not precisely defined in any contract then the rule of thumb is that you look at a dictionary definition with maybe some leaning towards common practice. As to people in certain areas being favoured by the lack of definitions, that falls into the same camp as checking any other feature is suitable for your needs but it may be more of a judgement call on if a favourable definition is better than a lack of a definition (eg a policy stated wind speeds of 40mph rather than the norm of 55)

Ironically its not just normal policyholders that fall foul of what they have signed up for, Insurers offset their risks by buying reinsurance which means the reinsurer reimburses some of their claims either as a straight percentage or once it goes over a certain value. Have at least once found a clause in a reinsurance treaty that not only had the insurer not been apply but they had no way to apply it even if they wanted to because it required data they didn't capture and policyholders weren't obliged to provide that data.

Your previous post read to me as if you were suggesting some underhanded activities going on because the data provider is owned by a company that provides claims handling services (aka TPA)... TPAs certainly have a moral conflict though as their fees are often linked to the size of the settlement so they have a duty to the insurer to minimise the claims cost but get paid more if they don't... sometimes its fairly big steps too, difference between £50,000 and £50,001 settlement could easily be £300 to the TPA

dunstonh

One of the things frequently forgotten by consumers is that home insurance, like so many other types of insurance, has budget plans, middle to the road plans and comprehensive plans.   You have companies that exist to come up as cheap as possible on a comparison site and they will lop away at some of the coverage to achieve that.    You have companies that exist to service the premium market who don't give two hoots about comparison sites but you are more likely to find they will pay out when needed and not have had coverage removed to make them a bit cheaper.

You also have companies that have a version of their insurance for comparison sites with bits removed and a bit cheaper and a version for the premium market that is more expensive but covers more.

This site has sometimes generated a cheap=best mindset.  Not intentionally but when you are so cost focused, it is easy to forget the reason you are buying something in the first place and just look at how much it costs you.

adindas

I am not trying to judge. But just a genuine question that spring to mind in relation to the insurance claim in relation to damage caused by the Storm to the building.

Could the insurance companies just compare the impact of the storm on other buildings with quite similar structure in the same areas (say)?? When there is no damage as described they could just move away and avoid obligation of any cover ??

Sandtree

adindas said:
Could the insurance companies just compare the impact of the storm on other buildings with quite similar structure in the same areas (say)?? When there is no damage as described they could just move away and avoid obligation of any cover ??

How would that work in practice? First person to call gets an automatic decline because they've only had 1 call so it can't be a storm? Everyone has to wait 1 month before any comments are made on if there is cover or not to give the slow people time to register?

You then have to consider how you deal with cases where there may only be 5 properties insured by a company in a particular town and 2 of those have a different construction/flat roof percentage etc... do they always get declined as not enough show the same damage?

Insurers do model major losses, systems like RMS can hold all the policies they insure and they can estimate impacted properties and likely costs if say the River Severn bursts its banks in North Worcester... this is used to ensure there is enough cash in the bank to deal with immediate claims, decide how many staff to have on etc. This isn't however used to decide if a claim is accepted or rejected nor if the amount claimed is appropriate as whilst the topology maps are good they cannot predict if the council has recently unblocked the storm drains or not