Cautionary insurance tale

[iansoady]

As you will know, I had the Tri-Greeves and the XBR500 stolen a couple of weeks ago. I have to say that the brokers, RH were very efficient and the underwriters paid up the agreed values (less £50 excess for each) this week. So far so good.

However, when I tried to add the 2 new bikes (BSA/Suzuki and Yamaha SRV250) to the policy I was told that the underwriters (ERS) wouldn't accept them. Not only that but they wouldn't renew the policy for the Norton, which is due for renewal in a couple of weeks!

On enquiring further I discovered that as 2 bikes had been stolen they were treating it as 2 separate claims - I did wonder why I'd had to fill in 2 virtually identical forms - so that meant I had 2 claims in the last year and they wouldn't accept the risk. The people at RH were very helpful and pleaded my case but to no avail.

The whole system is completely illogical. If I'd had one bike worth £50,000 stolen they would have had no problem. Imagine if I had a stable of a dozen low-priced machines which all went? I'd probably never get insured again.

I don't know if this is common practice but in my opinion it stinks. I've emailed ERS's CEO with my comments but I don't expect a positive response.

I have managed to get similar cover from the broker I've used in the past - Peter James - but at an annual premium of £325 rather than the less than £100 I'd been paying.

[Steve Lake]

just adding salt to the wound isn't it

[Itsme]

When I had three bikes stolen in a 4 year period I was treated like a criminal by the insurance people who clearly believed that I profited from the inconvenience and emotional upset of some scumbag stealing my bikes. My insurance went sky high until the thefts were too long ago to declare on new policy proposals.

Some will say I am stupid but these days I work on the assumption that if anything gets stolen again I wouldn't claim as the insureres would rip me off anyway and my premiums would rocket. As long as I have good third party cover that is ok by me.

Ian

[iansoady]

I've now raised a formal complaint both with the broker and the underwriter. If these fail I shall go to the ombudsman.

[Itsme]

Good luck, my daughter and son-in-law raised a complaint with the ombudsman against British Gas and won being awarded their claim in full so I hope you have a similar result.

Ian

[iansoady]

Thanks Ian, it's not so much the money it's the principle....

[AleXBR]

Same here.
I had 2 cars stolen off my drive over a 3 year period.
Company and it's subsidiaries refused any future cover.
They even employed an AMERICAN private detective agency to investigate me.
I only found that out due to them sending me an email by mistake!
Both cars had protected no claims.
Not worth the paper they were written on due not being able to recover costs from penniless scroats pleading poverty. Exacerbated by the police not willing to share the twats info!
So I'm loaded with incremental policy increases on both my car AND bikes.

If you report the theft to the police, that goes on a shared database with the insurance industry, so even if you don't claim, your insurance goes up. I think it's some sort of offence not to inform your insurer, claim or not.

[Itsme]

It is shameful that this situation has flourished, but sadly not unique to the insurance industry, they are just another large set of corporate bodies that have been allowed to write their own rules. Why we have to pay crooked, private organisations for the pleasure of riding our totally legal vehicles on public roads escapes me.

But then why do we pay huge standing charges for the 'pleasure' of having equipment in our houses so we can then be charged exorbitant prices for services? Why do we have to pay tax on pensions we already paid tax on when we earned the money to put into them. What is stamp duty for heavens sake!

It isn't just the big companies either, we had our lawn mower repaired at a main dealer for the brand of mower and after two cuts the old fault was back. When my wife phoned them their attitude was 'what's that got to do with us?' I took the mower apart and by the state of the bolts I had to remove and the lack of evidence of new belts etc I can confidently say the mower was simply in their workshop for a day or two and they charged us rent for it obviously as they never laid a spanner on it!

Draw your own conclusions as to why we now live in such a corrupt country. I will stop now before this gets moved to rants.

Ian

[iansoady]

Can't agree more Ian. My conclusions - it's global capitalism exacerbated by the neoliberal policies followed by all UK and US governments since about 1979. Destroyed the social contract which effectively said "if you work hard, look after your family then you'll have decent employment and a country fit to live in". Sadly I don't anticipate a change whoever wins on July 4th.

In so many ways I'm glad I'm in the closing decades of my life as at least I enjoyed some of that.

[AleXBR]

Ian, your last sentence covers my own view.
The future we were encouraged to expect as children turned out to be smoke and mirrors.
The native Americans were right; ''White man talks with forked tongue''.
We hear so much hand wringing, 'What sort of world are we leaving for our children to inherit'.
The truth is, our children will have a world full of opportunity, to do with as best they can.
My only hope is they can avoid the worst we humans are capable of.
Optimism is for fools in my experience.

[Itsme]

My wife and I were saying the other day we grew up in a golden era but just didn't know it.

1979, hmmm the election of a certain woman who my wife and I still blame. I suspect you're right Ian about July 4th as the heart seems to have gone out of British politics.

My hope lies with my grandchildren who are much more clued up about fairness and equality than my children's generation.

Ian

[Steve Lake]

well, don't you just love 'em!
#1. i have a rather ancient toyota Yaris 'T' Sport. i love it, goes like mucky stuff off a shovel.. nearly, but not quite as much fun as the Cooper 1275 S i had way back when. so, silly bu55er me was busy strimming around my garage, must've caught a stone and to my dismay the passenger door glass collapsed. i wasn't sure if the non windscreen glass was covered so i checked with the broker, no it wasn't so managed to find a breaker with the glass i needed for £70, and did the job myself. so far so good. 2 weeks later i get my insurance renewal offer ... more than doubled !! on asking why i was told that i'd sustained damage to the car !!  i only enquired mate!! don't matter the underwriter considers it as a unclaimed risk!! tw*ts!!  moved insurance to Carol Nash but paid more. (the nice bit was, 2 days before the policy expired the windscreen picked up a huge crack, so happily put in a claim... result)
#2. my house insurance is due for renewal on 1st june, currently with NFU, renewal premium more than doubled !! so i shop around and settle on 'Policy Expert' roughly the same price as my previous years NFU premium, it's all done online, but i fill out honestly the multitude of questions, get my quote and make a single payment, that was 2 weeks ago & all seemed ok. then, today i get a call asking me to log onto my account and answer some supplementary questions .... so i log in and am presented with a 'chat' window and have a lengthy dialogue around the name of my property (part of it's name is 'Farmhouse') .. as follows .... is it a working farm ? NO. does the associated land exceed 8 acres .. NO. are there any outbuildings and/or machinery .. NO. are there any additional buildings other than garage & conservatory ... well yes, i have a workshop. .. do you carry out paid work in the workshop .. NO. how is the workshop constructed .. brick/timber/tile. is the workshop in good condition. .. YES. what is the workshop used for .. carrying out my hobbies which, amongst other things include stained glass work & restoration. .. with regard to your (less than 8 acres of) land, is any of it used for grazing of livestock. .. erm, i allow my neighbour to put her horses into the paddock...... ok, thankyou, i will pass this info to the underwriters ... WHAT!!! THE F*CK!!! so, 72 hours before my old policy expires and with not enough time to pick up cover elsewhere, i can see there cunning plan! there will almost certainly be an 'uplift' so it might be a return to the NFU ... i'm absolutely fuming ...

[Itsme]

I have been thinking for a while of compiling a list of jobs we don't need in the modern world and your post has spurred me on to begin the list. Here we go;

Insurance underwriters
Lawyers
App developers
Marketing executives
Social media influencers
Reality stars
Accounts executives
DIY store greeters
Vehicle technicians (as opposed to mechanics which we certainly do need)
Software developers
People with made up job titles like Solutions engineer which apparently means software sales person and is an insult to genuine engineers.

The last one was prompted by me finally finding the c clip I needed in Halfords and not being able to pay for it as they had their card reader updated and it no longer worked!

You may feel free to add your own nominations.

I feel for you Steve and these days am more inclined to just lie to these people on the grounds that a) they started the silliness and b)they probably won't pay up anyway.

Ian

[kevberlin]

Great list there, but if I may indulge myself………………..if we allocate a ranking to your list, then top of the pile should be social influencers on the basis that every so-called influencer needs a gullible prat to sustain their role. It’s a double whammy of goons therefore.
One topical one to add to the list - Political Advisor/ Election Strategist
Kev