Help - my insurance company won't pay!

A

AlastairSC

Registered User
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357
When I contacted by house insurers about a broken window I was told my policy had lapsed. The brokers say I am on cover according to their records. (I placed the business through an Irish online insurance broker and paid by cheque the first year). I never got a renewal notice from anyone and only now realise that for the last year my house seems not to have cover!

The brokers said (on the phone) that they realised the onus was on them at renewal time to seek renewal or to ascertain that I had alternative cover. Is this correct? They are now back-tracking and arguing the toss with the insurance company.

The claim is for €790 less my excess of €150 = €640.

What do I do now?
 
In fairness to the insurance company, the thread title is a bit misleading - the reality is that since the last day of your previous policy, you have had no insurance company. The insurance company is not at fault because, if there is a broker involved, the renewal notice will be sent to him rather than direct to the client so they would have done their bit to try and keep you covered by notifying your broker. The (small) bright side is that you are down €640 less whatever you would have paid in insurance premium for the year you have been without cover. Your gripe is definitely with the broker who should have sent on the renewal notice to you and/or shopped around for better/cheaper cover. However, I don't think this extends to being a legal obligation to keep you informed of lapsing cover etc. - your contract with the broker is probably a year-to-year one rather than an ongoing one.
 
Have you been paying premiums for the last year? If not did you not wonder why?
 
AlastairSC said:
The claim is for €790 less my excess of €150 = €640.

What do I do now?
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Sounds like you were not insured. So...
  • Pay for the repairs yourself
  • Complain to the broker, ask for an explanation, try for compensation (probably not much chance), make a complaint to the relevant authorities if applicable etc.
  • Get insurance cover in place ASAP if you haven't done so already. Given the seeming unreliability of your broker in this instance you should probably find another one or else just arrange cover directly yourself.
  • Put it down to experience.
 
has the broker admitted that he is at fault? is he a member of any of the professional organisations? have you lodges a written complaint with broker?

howver, the onus is on you to ensure that you are insured, not on the broker to ensure that you get the renewal notice. it could for instance have been lost in post or been delivered to you and forgotton about, or even delivered in error to someone else in your area who simply forgot about it.

As previosu poster said, you are only down a small sum. it could have been much worse, a total loss of the house and what then?? A collection a the local church on a Sat night or a benefit night in a local club.
 
Do you have an additional interest in the property (bank building society etc) most of these insist on getting notification from the insurers when a client does not renew a policy or when a policy is cancelled, you might contact them and see if they received notification the policy was not renewed
 
I wouldn't contact your bank/building society - I don't think they'd be too impressed to hear that your house wasn't insured last year! We change insurer every year - just seems that they all entice you with a great offer for the first year and hope you won't shop around the second year - I don't believe our bank would have been notified by each insurer if our policy wasn't renewed with them - maybe if it was cancelled mid term.
 
If you change insurer on a mortgaged property then you are supposed to get a letter of indemnity from the new insurer for your lender. This is most likely specified in the terms & conditions of your loan agreement. On the other hand insurance applications normally ask if there is a lender with an interest in the property and may send the letter on automatically.
 
It is a condition of our mortgage that we have the property insured but we are not obliged to notify them of our insurer or indeed forward proof of such a policy being in place. We do however notify our insurer of our banks interest.
 
Lorz said:
It is a condition of our mortgage that we have the property insured but we are not obliged to notify them of our insurer or indeed forward proof of such a policy being in place.
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Really? I find that very surprising! I have never come across a lender that did not require a letter of indemnity from the insurer as long as they (the lender) had an interest in the property.
 
Lorz - The standard agreement between insurance companies and lending institutions is that on cancelation or lapsing of a policy the insurer will notify the lending institution. This agreemment is confirmed in a letter of indemnity- its possible when you changed insurer your old insurer notified the lender but they also recieved notification from your new insurer hence no need to contact you.

Alistair - i recommend you ask your insurer if they contacted your lender to confirm the policy was cancelled as you were not contacted yourself. I doubt they will want to argue the situation with you unless they are happy the broker went to great lenghts to try and renew this policy The worst thing your lender can do is ask you to arrange cover immmediatly, which you should do anyway. Murphys law etc.
 
ClubMan said:
Really? I find that very surprising! I have never come across a lender that did not require a letter of indemnity from the insurer as long as they (the lender) had an interest in the property.
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When we first drew down the mortgage we had to provide proof of Insurance but haven't since then. As stated by Jonathan, I presume the insurance co's are contacting our bank directly - didn't realise they did this.
 
ClubMan said:
Really? I find that very surprising! I have never come across a lender that did not require a letter of indemnity from the insurer as long as they (the lender) had an interest in the property.
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Bank of Ireland. For the 6 years i owned my own house i frequently changed insurance to whoever was the best value. I contacted the bank in each case who didn't require any documentation to prove same.
 
I would double check the terms & conditions of the loan agreement to check precisely what it says about insurance on the property, letters of indemnity if changing insurer, notifying other changes in circumstances to the lender etc.
 
thanks to all who took the trouble to reply. Update: the brokers wrote today to admit they allowed cover to lapse.

They are paying the cost of the claim, less €150 which would have been my excess - had I a policy!

I had asked them to put another policy in place from the first phone call, while this was being investigated, as I couldn't take the risk of no cover (there's an irony here somewhere!).

They have set up a new policy, at a (so far unspecified) discount.

I'm now considering a range of optionsm, from passive to active
Should I -

accept this and leave it?
pursue the €150 (there was no excess as there was no policy)?
complain to IBA?
other?

My own feeling is one of relief that the matter is sorted, mixed with horror that my house had no insurance for a year (and that I have inadvertantly probably breached one of the mortgage conditions) and the feeling that they should probably do more to set things right than just this.

Opinions, as ever, welcome.
 
Count yourself lucky your house didn't burn down,i doubt the broker would have forked out for that.I think you have a bit of responsibility here yourself,you should know when your house/car insurance is due.
 
AlastairSC said:
the feeling that they should probably do more to set things right than just this.
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Seriously? Like what? Compensation for your distress? They have done the right think here when, strictly speaking, I think they would not have been held liable if you had had to sue them. They have put you in the same position on the claim as if you did indeed have a policy. You saved on a year's premium (so you're actually finanically better off than having had a policy and a claim). They have given you a discount on your new policy. AND you don't have a claim recorded against your name/policy. All this and you're at least 50/50 liable yourself - and you still want 'more' from them?

Say thank you to your broker for doing the right thing and mark on your calendar roughly when your policies are due for renewal so you can check yourself in future.
 
originally posted by Orka
mark on your calendar roughly when your policies are due for renewal so you can check yourself in future.
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Set a reminder on your mobile phone as well - if you put it under birthday, yr phone will remind you every year.
 
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