That "Have you or someone in your household ever been refused insurance" question.

fluffymuffy

A couple of years ago a car crashed into our house causing £40k of damage, which will be recovered from the driver's insurance. It was a freak accident where a car shot out of the neighbouring driveway. We live down a quiet country lane where there are few cars passing.

Our insurance company declined to quote when the time came to renew. We had to look elsewhere and pay a lot extra. Now we've sold our house and are looking where else to buy. I've been looking at insurance quotes for properties we're interested in, and the difference in premiums between saying yes to "Myself or someone in my household was declined insurance" and saying no, runs to hundreds of pounds. 

Will this be always with us? It's so unfair. Is there anything I can do? 

DullGreyGuy

Declining to quote is not refused insurance, if that were the case anyone that's ever done a quote on confused.com etc would have to answer yes because down the bottom will always be providers that don't like you for one reason or another.

Some insurers do however ask if you've ever not been offered renewal terms and to that question you would have to say yes based on what you say. 

fluffymuffy

DullGreyGuy said:

Declining to quote is not refused insurance, if that were the case anyone that's ever done a quote on confused.com etc would have to answer yes because down the bottom will always be providers that don't like you for one reason or another.

Some insurers do however ask if you've ever not been offered renewal terms and to that question you would have to say yes based on what you say. 

I was looking on comparethemarket.com and the actual wording is -

" I or someone living in the house have had home insurance refused, cancelled, declined or void or had any conditions imposed "

Aretnap

It sounds like you can answer "no" to that question as it doesn't specifically ask about a failure to offer renewal terms.

I was told once by someone in the insurance industry that the "refused insurance" question is a throwback to the days when you bought insurance from an office in your local high street rather than from a Meerkat. The broker in your high street didn't have underwriting authority; he had an abridged version of various underwriting manuals so he would recommend you an insurer, give you a quote based on the abridged manual, give you a seven day cover note if you needed your insurance to start immediately, then send your details on to an underwriter for a final decision. Sometimes the underwriter said no, but usually this only happened if either you had some very unusual circumstances which weren't covered by the abridged underwriting manual, or they thought you'd lied about something. You only had to declare a refusal to insure if you were refused at this late stage. (DGG may be able to confirm if my understanding is along the right lines).

Nowadays it's all done instantly and electronically, the gap between quote and acceptance doesn't really exist, and the classic refusal to insure isn't really a thing any more - but the question remains. I agree that it's badly worded. But it's basically looking for people who've had insurance refused or cancelled for fraud or for non-payment, not for people who once found an insurer that didn't want to cover their particular circumstances. As DGG says, if it was aimed at everyone who has ever been declined a quote that would include everyone under 50 who has used a price comparison site that included Saga.