Home insurance (non-claim) scandal!

DullGreyGuy

Sea_Shell said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Sea_Shell said:

What is a "loss"?  Does it have to breach a £££ threshold?   Be just be more than ones excess?

If you did have AD cover and you, say, dropped a plate and smashed it... likely it would fall within ones excess and noone would even think of claiming, or even enquiring.

So where's the threshold between a plate and a TV? 🤔

The OP called up to claim so its a slightly different story.

Even as someone working in the industry find the question awkward when applied to Home insurance as companies dont specify a minimum loss value but at the same time if you started to tell them every time you've chipped a mug etc they are likely to say those things dont need to be declared (more difficult if you are using an online tool). 

For Motor its clearer but you still get cases like if you kerb your alloys is that declarable or just the way you know your close enough to the kerb. 

If you've called to try to claim, as the OP did, then it's most likely going to count as a claim even if its a chipped mug which was repudiated on a number of levels. 

I agree about the motor insurance too.  But it's only really "clearer" if it involves a third party (vehicle, person or property)

It's one thing to scratch your car slightly on, say, a twig on a country lane, another if it's been keyed.

Or the difference between a stone chip, and being hit by any larger flying object.

You risk an engineer picking up "previous unreported damage" if you then have a "proper" claim.

Then the age of the car and "wear and tear" come into play.   

It's a minefield.

Nearly every time someone asks "should I declare this damage...?" , the answer will be "yes", regardless of £££

I think you may have missed that I said clearer rather than clear, ie it's a relative thing. 

Being keyed I think most would accept that is vandalism involving a third party and is a loss. Stone chips, scuffs from hedges, kerbing your alloy are more in the grey area especially as some seem to use the scraping sound of alloy -v- kerb as the way to know they are close enough when parallel parking. 

Obviously many people "forget" to mention these sorts of things as well as those fender benders that they settled privately as there is no record. They then claim the alloys were damaged when they bought the car, it was over 5 years ago or that they've never noticed it before. I dont recall any policy being challenged based on these sort of minor things (ignoring the privately settled matter) but it may impact settlement of a claim. Have had multiple cases where more significant damages were identified and the policyholder advised it was from a crash they had last year etc and those did turn out to be more of a problem for them when they hadn't informed us.

Sea_Shell

I agree about damage being "relative".

Do insurers live in this "relative" world, or in a world of black and white, and yes/no answers?

"Ah, but ..." doesn't appear on any application 😉