Home insurance completed wrong

doomscroll

Hello

Wondering if anyone can advise. Does a mistake on my home insurance details matter if correcting it actually reduces the risk? For example, because we weren’t completely sure what constituted a flat roof, (whether a dormer counts, for example) we listed it as ‘up to 25% flat’. Now coming to renewal we’ve realised it’s probably not flat at all, which obviously entails lower risk on the insurers part. Could we be penalised for this error and would you bother correcting it?

Thanks in advance!

DullGreyGuy

doomscroll said:

Wondering if anyone can advise. Does a mistake on my home insurance details matter if correcting it actually reduces the risk? For example, because we weren’t completely sure what constituted a flat roof, (whether a dormer counts, for example) we listed it as ‘up to 25% flat’. Now coming to renewal we’ve realised it’s probably not flat at all, which obviously entails lower risk on the insurers part. Could we be penalised for this error and would you bother correcting it?

Technically the law states that if you made a deliberate or reckless false disclosure then they can void the policy and avoid any claims... the law doesn't actually say that the false disclosure would have to have resulted in a lower premium. If however you look at how careless false disclosures work were that to be applied to a false disclosure that increased your premium you're claim payment would be increased so it doesn't make sense. 

By law the financial ombudsman isnt a pseudo court, they are explicitly bound to find fair outcomes not to try and mirror what a court would have found. As such they will on occasions make decisions that are different to what a court would have made. In the general situation I cannot see the FOS allowing a policyholder to have a policy voided and claim avoided because they declared they had 2 speeding convictions that actually had dropped off a couple years prior. At the same time, I can't see any normal insurer for trying to do so in the first place. 

There are exceptions though, there may be "flat roof only" insurance products out there and in principle it does become more problematic if the insurer wouldn't have offered terms had they known the truth even if the truth is less risky. 

Aside from any of that I would still correct it because if an insurer finds an error in one part they may look harder for other errors and similarly it may result in referrals being made slowing down the claim whilst the underwriter confirms its ok for them to proceed.