Home Insurance matched items cover

stannij

Hi. We had a water leak in our kitchen and the kitchen is 14 years old and no longer available from Magnet. We have a kitchen which is half walnut and half cream. As we have matched items cover our insurance will replace all of the walnut but not the cream. How can they only replace half a kitchen when we have the best cover? Are we supposed to have half new/half old? Also, they are saying the quote from Magnet for the walnut section is too expensive. Any thoughts really appreciated.

Aretnap

I can see their point to be honest. Matching set cover is supposed to cover... matching sets. So that of one of your walnut units gets damaged and can't be properly replaced, you're not left with a set of walnut units, one of which looks different from the rest.

The cream units look different from the walnut units anyway so would firm a separate matching set. If none of them have been damaged I think there's a pretty strong arguement that replacing then isn't covered. 

How do the policy terms define matching set/matched items?

stannij

Sorry I didn’t see your response. Thanks. 

DullGreyGuy

stannij said:

Sorry I didn’t see your response. Thanks. 

Stab in the dark here but looks like there is a Silver, Gold and Black levels of cover and its only the Black that this applies to based on the coloured icons next to the section header?

Do you have the black level of cover?

stannij said:

Hi. We had a water leak in our kitchen and the kitchen is 14 years old and no longer available from Magnet. We have a kitchen which is half walnut and half cream. As we have matched items cover our insurance will replace all of the walnut but not the cream. How can they only replace half a kitchen when we have the best cover? Are we supposed to have half new/half old? Also, they are saying the quote from Magnet for the walnut section is too expensive. Any thoughts really appreciated.

Do you have a photo of the kitchen? Half and Half could mean very different things, other than the colour how close are the two parts in shape, hardware etc?

Were all the damage parts just one of the colours?

Have you seen their proposed replacement? Ignoring how close the colour is, how close a match is the shape etc?

stannij

Hi. We do have matching items cover. It was the best cover they offered. 

stannij

The damage was only to the walnut part of the kitchen. The other half is cream and undamaged. The insurance company have said they will only replace the walnut section. 

DullGreyGuy

stannij said:

Hi. We do have matching items cover. It was the best cover they offered. 

Best cover they offered is a very heavy caveat, you can buy the best that Poundland sells, it doesn't mean it compares to the standard offering from a high net worth store. 

stannij said:

The damage was only to the walnut part of the kitchen. The other half is cream and undamaged. The insurance company have said they will only replace the walnut section. 

That may be perfectly reasonable without seeing both the kitchen and proposed replacement. When a hit and run driver damaged the wing of my car the insurer didnt offer a brand new car

stannij

They are two completely different styles of doors. I can see their point but have never heard of a complete kitchen not being insured. We were ahead of the times back when we had it and a lot of kitchens now are two different styles. Little do people know only part of your kitchen is potentially covered. 

DullGreyGuy

stannij said:

They are two completely different styles of doors. I can see their point but have never heard of a complete kitchen not being insured. We were ahead of the times back when we had it and a lot of kitchens now are two different styles. Little do people know only part of your kitchen is potentially covered. 

The majority of Home insurance policies cover what was damaged so if 1 door was damaged then that is what the insurer on paper is liable for and nothing for the other 24 doors. The FOS however has a long history of saying that no matter what the policy states that in certain circumstances the insurer should make a 50% contributions to the other remaining matching doors if the client wants to change them because a single replacement isnt available. 

If you destroy your whole kitchen then irrespective of what it looked like then it would be insured. 

Our kitchen has two totally different styles of units. It would be totally reasonable if only one side was damaged that only that side is replaced as the two sides dont match. They dont look the same now so them not looking the same tomorrow isnt a deterioration of the situation. 

stannij

Thanks for your thoughts. We have matching cover so they will replace all of the walnut units. Just seems odd that half the kitchen will be new and half old. A chap who works with the insurance company said it was very unusual so that added to the situation. 

DullGreyGuy

stannij said:

Thanks for your thoughts. We have matching cover so they will replace all of the walnut units. Just seems odd that half the kitchen will be new and half old. A chap who works with the insurance company said it was very unusual so that added to the situation. 

If they say its odd and not inline with their policy then get him to take action to bring it back in line with policy.