Have you been unfairly denied an insurance claim?

I always endorse proposal-forms with ‘ I cannot possibly know everything that you, an insurer, might regard as relevant to your acceptance of this risk. I have revealed everything that I , a layman, consider relevant and am always willing to answer specific questions’. Perhaps someone will tell me the legal status of this, and whether it makes a blind bit of difference.

we booked a holiday in october 2009 to be taken in september 2010, at the time of booking we declared every item of medication that i was taking. in june 2010 i had a slight stroke, had to cancel the holiday, and tried to claim our deposit back, they refused to pay, claiming that we had not disclosed everything, namely raised cholesterol, which we didn’t know about until after the stroke, so, how could we declare it? we are still waiting to get our deposit back. if which wants comment from members we would be happy to take part.

We recently had a new patio laid. When the old one was taken up there was a void under the drain which had obviously been leaking for sometime due to the amount of soil that had been washed away. The insurance company claimed this was accidental damage which I was not covered for, How could it accidenttal when the drain was 2 feet below ground and covered in concrete?

When renewing my motor insurance with the RAC an aside about my son’s accident in my wife’s car led to an instant dip into my bank account asI had not notified them of this claim and as my wife was a named driver on my policy they had to amend my policy.My son has never driven my car nor would he. How can a driver’s accident reflect on the policy of a vehicle he would never drive.He doesnt live at home.His use of my wife’s car was a one off.My wife has never driven my car although she is on the policy just in case.I refused to renew the policy nor will my wife when hers expires.Their booklet says they should be told about complete inormation about the car and insured drivers and any incident which may involve us as insurers.I did tell them when I arranged my wife’s insurance!I have ewritten to them and will contact Ombudsman if I get nowhere.It only cost me £20 but had I mad a claim they would have rejected it -a waste of £300 premium.

House Insurance,
I had a leak in my bathroom that went down into the dining room. This cost me over £3k to get sorted. Not a problem you think!!!
When the loss adjuster was here he was shown the warped and damaged bath panel – this was in the garage and so was my husbands embroidery machine.
Yes you guessed it we were turned down because we did not disclose the business, however this was not the case as I had asked if they could cover the machine and they said not under the house policy. It is my word against theirs!!
What happened next… went to another insurer and told them that my husband was self employed and worked from home…… guess what – that also has not shown up on the policy document so if I need to claim….. SORRY YOU DIDN’T DISCLOSE.
There is no way to sort it as it is always your word against theirs!!

I totally support any campaign Which? mounts against this pernicious practice of “insurers”. I took a lone ‘pop’ at it some 30 years ago by asking my insurer (well known then and apparently reputable, but now long since ‘merged’) what they considered a ‘relevant fact to declare’ when renewing my policy, against which I had made no claim. They replied, in effect, ‘whatever we might consider relevant if a claim is made’. When I pressed upon them the observation that, as they must, surely, already have a list of such factors which they would consider justifying an increased premium if mentioned when taking out the policy, why could this list not be made available to policyholders, so that no dispute could arise later, to which they could only lamely reply to the effect that ‘it was standard industry practice’.

I urge Which? to launch a vigorous campaign to get this scandalous practice stopped.

I was not too sure if my use of ‘pernicious’ in the opening line was appropriate but my Mac dictionary shows that its origins make it much more appropriate than I realised :

Origin late Middle English : from Latin perniciosus ‘destructive’, from pernicies ‘ruin’, based on nex, nec- ‘death’.

I support the retention of this bit of law – it keeps fraudulent claims down so that we honest customers don’t have to pay more. The issues highlighted in the other posts show how weak product analysis is by customers and by Which? – instead of telling us which kettle to buy (cost £30) Which? should be exposing disingenuous dealing by these useless insurers (cost £ thousands). Changing this bit of law would be solving the wrong problem and would increase costs substantially.
Which could usefully develop some simple rules of thumb to help us buy insurance that is appropriate
e.g. never buy an extended warranty (insurance) at point of sale if it costs more than 5% of the purchase price
e.g. always opt for the highest excess that you can afford to cover yourself – better still, don’t buy insurance when you can afford to self-insure (e.g. for mobile phones)
e.g. never buy accidental damage cover for house contents because there is so much scope for fraudulent claims by others that you can never pay a fair price (unless you too claim fraudulently)

Finally, Which? should encourage us all to take responsibility for our own property and belongings. Which? has a duty to work towards the society our children & grandchildren will inherit and I for one don’t want them to inherit an “it’s not my fault” culture.