Is Good will gesture a claim?

ryantcb · 18 November 2019 at 10:28PM

Hi found out today that my home contents would not cover an item. I bought the item Wednesday and it fell and broke on the following Sunday. Value was £2000. As apparently I hadn’t declared the item as it’s over £1500 it was not covered. You can imagine how devastating this was after being with the insurer for a number of years and never having claimed before. I asked what the allowed time to notify them was seeing as I only just got the item 4 days previous. Three if you take into account they don’t work Sunday’s. They said should have been straight away but they don’t actually state this on their documents. I actually wanted to cry but instead resorted to begging them. They said they would make a good will gesture and pay me up to the value of £1500 but made it clear technically they didn’t have to pay anything as it wasn’t covered. My question is as this is a goodwill gesture and not actually a claim. Can I if asked in the future, “have you ever made a claim?”. can I in fact still say no as the claim was refused and they paid out on goodwill

[Deleted User] · 18 November 2019 at 10:32PM

You would have to ask them, but I would imagine it would be marked as a claim, as you made a claim.

Accepting the goodwill gesture won't change that, so it's a good result.

Zorillo · 18 November 2019 at 11:02PM

It's a claim.

davidwatts · 19 November 2019 at 6:05PM

Yes it's a claim and the outcome is what you would normally expect to be covered rather than, usually, having to be a good will gesture. (Most policies would cover an item up to the limit when it hadn't been specified for the true value rather than not cover it at all.)

Chickenlips · 22 November 2019 at 11:38PM

It is a claim.

Unless your policy states that undeclared items over £1,500 are automatically excluded, you should be entitled to cover up to £1,500 (provided the cause of damage is covered by the policy) as a matter of course.

They may have flagged it as a potential fraudulent claim, as buying something expensive and then claiming in a week is unusual. You should be able to progress with few issues if you have all the paperwork ect.

I would review your policy in detail before returning to them and make sure they honor the terms and conditions.

jonesMUFCforever · 24 November 2019 at 8:57PM

It would have been a claim even if they had not paid out IMO.
A claim is a claim whether successful or not.

Is Good will gesture a claim?

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