I heard this on the radio this morning: Another victim found their excess had gone up to an enormous £12,500, adding: "We've got insurance, we've got flood coverage, but unbeknown to me, they changed the insurance policy from a £1,000 excess and then renewed it at £12,500. "So we were in a panic last week, trying to get all the furniture up as £12,500 is not something you can afford to lose." Assuming the low excess they were relaxed about all the furniture being ruined for the Insurance co. to replace with new. Rather than bother to protect it! Makes me feel sorry for the insurance industry......This sort of attitude causes us all to pay more for our cover. And she used "so"
But it's a pay-to-play game Fig! I am always happier paying a lower premium, higher excess as I try to avoid making claims. I don't want to subsidise the "not bothered, can't be arsed" section of our community.
Well surely they're going to have to claim anyway for flood damage to the building, so saving the furniture will be irrelevant as the excess will still be £12.5k.
That's a good point. I don't suppose many claims are below that amount. If the insurers were smart they'd split the contents and structure on the policy? Those poor people lugged the furniture up the stairs for nothing :smile:
Two sides to the insurance industry though isn't there. They can and will find any means possible not to pay or reduce the payment , whilst the head honcho's of these company's live like kings , so you'll not get any sympathy for either side from me.
Most are split, contents and buildings. How many all of a sudden had a laptop or priceless chippendale in their lounge when it was flooded..
Always check the policy when renewing. People need to take responsibility for contracts they enter into.
No reason to lose ones own integrity though. I quite like to be able to look at myself in the mirror (metaphorically speaking). Insurance fraud etc is a self defeating crime which is a crime not only against insurance companies but to all us citizens. To accept it and be blasé about its commonplace occurrence is another sad reflection of how as a people we've become self centred selfish bastards. My 1st action would have been to move the furniture had I £1 excess or £1000.
i believe its rife. a well heeled customer of a fiat garage i worked in try'd to make a claim for a lap top that was destroyed allegedly by a water leak in to the passenger foot-well, upon checking the water was found to carbonated. dumb ass.
And that just makes genuine claimants have an unnecessarily hard time as the Insurance industry has it's guard up.
While watching TV I couldn't help but notice how many people complained about not having sand bags [a sand bag will only divert water not stop it from coming into a property] yet they cant be arsed to take what they can upstairs or lift things onto kitchen work tops,lots of them probably think this is the chance to get everything renewed. We were flooded 9 years ago here in the Tyne Valley I took the doors off,lifted the fitted carpets,emptied the kithen cupboards oh and made sure the bikes were safe we were out of the house for about 4 months most of our neighbours were about 9 months,some of them even lost things like passports driving licence and family photo albums some people just don't get it do they ?
I'm really not sure what people mean by "Claim Culture" Surely it started the moment insurance started? Why have insurance and not claim when something goes wrong? If it's not justified the claim shouldn't be paid so "frivolous" claims like the one for Perrier in the Laptop won't have any effect on premiums.
No, I don't think that's the case. Or maybe it is but the numbers have jumped dramatically. Taking bike insurance as an example; back in the day if you had a prang you'd have to cart the broken bike round to 3 different garages to get repair quotes before anything would get fixed, but by the mid 80's people would claim on the insurance if they scratched the fairing backing out of the garden gate, because the insurers made it too easy to make a claim - just pop it into one of their approved repairers and the job's a good'un. Certainly there was a sea change with insurance in the late 80's; suddenly cabbies and us dispatchers found ourselves uninsureable because insurers didn't want to take the risk any more. I rode around for two months with no insurance because not one single insurance company would sell me a policy. To me, it was the insurance companies that instigated the change of attitude. By making it easier to claim (but making insurance far more expensive with higher premiums and much higher excesses), people started to think they should be getting something for all this money they were shelling out. So things that would previously have been ignored - a scratched fairing, a scorch mark in the living room carpet, that kind of thing - were suddenly a good excuse for a claim. The insurers then reacted to this by imposing ridiculous clauses on policies that they could use to wriggle out of a claim (did you know soft luggage is classed as a modification, so if you crash while on a weekend break you ain't getting paid out..? No, thought not), or altering the excess on renewals, or changing the small print without telling you. And the more insurance costs, the more people will want to see some comeback for their money. Human nature whichever side you look at it from. Insurance, especially policies that are legally required, should be regulated by the government. If it's run by companies trying to make a profit there will always be problems. Equally, claimants need to be told that every claim will be investigated. That should slow 'em down a bit.
I called my insurance company the other day for a leak in the roof and, to put it bluntly, got told fuck you, fix it yourself!... £1500 later and it's now not leaking. They used every excuse - wear and tear seemed to be their favourite! On a fucking roof?!... It's not like I walk on it! all they kept going on about was fraudulent claims... I've now been told that because I called them about the leak, they will class this as a claim, and my policy will go up later this year even though they never paid a penny out... Robbing cnuts!
