House Insurance warning

Steveystar

I had a bad experience today that concerned me, whilst renewing my buildings and contents insurance. I always try to do the right thing and of course, be completely honest in everything. 4 years ago I was insured with the _______ and during the 12 months period of cover, I discovered water seeping through my bedroom ceiling. I phoned the insurance company to put my claim in but soon realised, with the amount of damage and excess on the policy, that it wasn’t worth proceeding with my claim. I phoned the company back the next day to cancel/ retract my claim and that was that. In the following years, as I often do, I searched on a compare website to obtain other quotations and subsequent cover. In entering my claims history online one of the questions was "have you had any claims in the last 5 years even if the insurance did not pay out?" As I cancelled/retracted my claim I answered NO. I subsequently insured via the website for the next few years - as it is all done on the comparison site you often don't need to contact the insurance company directly. Today, as my renewal is due soon, I again looked on the comparison website and found a better deal. When I tried to click and accept the insurance deal the site required that I ring the insurance company directly this time. When I then spoke with the insurance company they said that although they could see my details forwarded by the comparison website, they could not provide me with a cover quotation as they said that an insurance claims database had flagged up a claim that I had not declared! So I went back to my existing company and phoned them about this. I was concerned that for the previous 4 years, despite my endeavours to be completely honest, my house insurance may have been void. I said to the company that I had not actually made a claim in 2020 as I had subsequently cancelled/ retracted it but they said it was an "incident" which counted as a claim and therefore should have been declared. I then said that if they had never actually covered me I should get my premium back but the representative would not confirm whether I had actually been covered or not. You can probably understand my concern over this. I eventually, in my panic, agreed to declare my "cancelled" claim from 2020 as an actual claim so as to ensure that my house and contents are covered for the next 12 months. The premium increased of course. This does not seem fair to me.

DullGreyGuy

You dont say which comparison site you are using but most ask a different question to what you are saying. Confused.com for example ask:

Have you or anyone living at the property made any home insurance claims or suffered any losses in the last 5 years? You must include any incidents that resulted in items being stolen, injury to other people or damage to property. You should include incidents even if you didn’t make a claim, and regardless of if you were paid for a claim. Examples that we need to know about are burglary, vandalism, fire, water or storm damage and any claim made.

In your case you did make a claim, you did subsequently withdraw the claim but withdrawing is not the same as having never made. When you made the claim it would have been pushed to CUE, when you withdrew the claim the CUE record would have been updated to show the claim as closed with no outlay.  As you'll note from the above however you still have to declare even if you didnt make a claim. 

I'm not a fan of this question in relation to Home insurance because of very minor incidents in theory are declarable but in practice no one does (eg chip a mug when washing up) but there is no definition of what level of loss needs to be declared. 

Thankfully for you there is only 1 more year of having to declare this claim before its over the 5 year threshold 

Seasalt3

I had a similar incident 2 years ago where I phoned my insurer as we had a water leak that turned out to be minor so I cancelled the possible claim.  I have stayed with the same insurer and their policy states ' you have not had any PAID claims in the past 5 years'.

elsien

Steveystar said:

I had a bad experience today that concerned me, whilst renewing my buildings and contents insurance. I always try to do the right thing and of course, be completely honest in everything. 4 years ago I was insured with the _______ and during the 12 months period of cover, I discovered water seeping through my bedroom ceiling. I phoned the insurance company to put my claim in but soon realised, with the amount of damage and excess on the policy, that it wasn’t worth proceeding with my claim. I phoned the company back the next day to cancel/ retract my claim and that was that. In the following years, as I often do, I searched on a compare website to obtain other quotations and subsequent cover. In entering my claims history online one of the questions was "have you had any claims in the last 5 years even if the insurance did not pay out?" As I cancelled/retracted my claim I answered NO. I subsequently insured via the website for the next few years - as it is all done on the comparison site you often don't need to contact the insurance company directly. Today, as my renewal is due soon, I again looked on the comparison website and found a better deal. When I tried to click and accept the insurance deal the site required that I ring the insurance company directly this time. When I then spoke with the insurance company they said that although they could see my details forwarded by the comparison website, they could not provide me with a cover quotation as they said that an insurance claims database had flagged up a claim that I had not declared! So I went back to my existing company and phoned them about this. I was concerned that for the previous 4 years, despite my endeavours to be completely honest, my house insurance may have been void. I said to the company that I had not actually made a claim in 2020 as I had subsequently cancelled/ retracted it but they said it was an "incident" which counted as a claim and therefore should have been declared. I then said that if they had never actually covered me I should get my premium back but the representative would not confirm whether I had actually been covered or not. You can probably understand my concern over this. I eventually, in my panic, agreed to declare my "cancelled" claim from 2020 as an actual claim so as to ensure that my house and contents are covered for the next 12 months. The premium increased of course. This does not seem fair to me.

I would suggest that you let this part of it go. I expect they would only decide if you were covered or not at the point you made a claim and this would be a decision by the underwriters, not by the call handler you were speaking to.

You haven’t needed to try to claim  so it’s academic now anyway - quibbling over refunded insurance premiums probably isn’t going to go very far. 

dunstonh

 In entering my claims history online one of the questions was "have you had any claims in the last 5 years even if the insurance did not pay out?" As I cancelled/retracted my claim I answered NO.

Is that actually what it asked of is that your summary of what you think it asked?

The reason I say that is that the question asked by insurers and comparison sites would say more than that normally to cover losses whether you claimed or not.    What you have described in quotes (suggesting its actual text) does not match expectation.

 When I then spoke with the insurance company they said that although they could see my details forwarded by the comparison website, they could not provide me with a cover quotation as they said that an insurance claims database had flagged up a claim that I had not declared!

Which is correct.  You do.

 I then said that if they had never actually covered me I should get my premium back but the representative would not confirm whether I had actually been covered or not.

Why do you think the policy is void and you should get a refund?  
An inadvertent non-disclosure of a £nil value claim would not void the policy.    It may have increased the premium but it probably wouldn't with most.

 You can probably understand my concern over this. I eventually, in my panic, agreed to declare my "cancelled" claim from 2020 as an actual claim so as to ensure that my house and contents are covered for the next 12 months. The premium increased of course. This does not seem fair to me.

Its not a question of fairness.  its a question of fact.   
Have you suffered a loss whether you claimed or not - yes
Did you make a claim - yes (you retracted it but it is recorded as a claim).

So, you made a mistake but you have got away with it.   Be happy with that and take it a lesson to read the questions asked by the insurer before you answer them next time.

tacpot12

Thanks for the warning. 

Annemos

I have been looking into "incidents" and how they affect the CUE Claims and Underwriting Exchange, which many Insurers refer to, either when a claim is made or sometimes at the actual point of purchase. 

The Ombudsman almost always upholds the right for the Insurance Company to put any reported "incidents" on the CUE. 

There is sometimes an Ombudsman discussion about how it is actually being described on the CUE (see below for examples), but it is usually upheld that an "Incident" must stay on there. 

The Insurance Company often has this ability within their Terms and Conditions. (Ability to share information about "Incidents" with anti-Fraud databases etc, for example,  "for reported Incidents that may or may not give rise to a claim".) 


A couple of Examples from FOS cases:   

"  Whilst I agree that an enquiry would’ve needed to be logged as this is industry practice whether a claim is made or not, I don’t think it’s fair for Insurance Company to have categorised the enquiry as landslip, heave or subsidence, or to include these terms in the incident description. On 12 July I spoke to an agent at Insurance Company who confirmed that the incident description had been amended and that the record had been changed to “accidental damage” with no loss recorded and no insured peril – and that this was the most that could be done since Mrs W had called to make an enquiry about a loss. I confirmed that this felt like a fair outcome to the complaint."


" Mr B bought a home insurance policy with Insurance Company. In 2018 he called to tell it there was water leaking into the basement of his home. Mr B asked if his policy covered a claim if he wanted to make one. Insurance Company said it would need to open a claim in order to check for Mr B. The agent told Mr B that if the claim wasn’t covered it would be closed and it wouldn’t affect Mr B’s future premium.   ..............    Insurance Company now says it has updated the record to show the claim as a notification only – which I think correctly reflects the circumstances of the incident."


"Shower leak:   The CUE database is widely used by insurers and it is standard industry practice for insurers to record all reported incidents. Having decided Insurance Company acted reasonably in setting up the claim, it follows that I think it was entitled to record the claim on CUE. It did record the claim as settled in error but has rectified this to show the claim as withdrawn. I think that is reasonable."

Snowy2018

I need to do the same, think I need to claim as wster escape - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6493045/water-leak-underneath-possibly/p1

No payout or anything, plumber came out, checked my bathroom, not me.

Annemos

Yes Snowy2018, if you did ask the Insurance Company about the Water Escape, even if the claim was ultimately declined. then you need to check what questions you were asked when you took out this latest policy. Did you answer them correctly? 

Snowy2018

Annemos said:

Yes Snowy2018, if you did ask the Insurance Company about the Water Escape, even if the claim was ultimately declined. then you need to check what questions you were asked when you took out this latest policy. Did you answer them correctly? 

Renewal is due October, will have to see what is asked, I saved date of claim ready.

I will request this too:
https://blog.howdeninsurance.co.uk/the-cue-database-explained/

You can see what information the CUE database holds on you by completing a Subject Access Request form on the MIB website. 

It costs nothing to make this request, but you will need to provide details like your name, address, contact details, and reasons for requesting the information.

Annemos

Yes. You can do the application on-line and it takes one month for them to process it.