Help Accused of making a frudlent claim on home insurance

[Rude-boy]

Walking along you trip on the rug and fall head first with iPad in hand. FIrst thing that connects with thefloor is the corner of the iPad which by now fear had gripped to your hand so you have 6+ stone of lady pressing down on a surface area of less than 1cm square. In that situation I can easily see how the floor was dented and the iPad bent. I am surprised no one has suggested that photos of the iPad should assist the OP's case (not on here, some of PH would argue even if you had posted a video of the incident!)but with the insurance people. As suggested I think that there is a good chance they are thinking "There is no iPad".

[onesickpuppy]

Rude-boy said:

Walking along you trip on the rug and fall head first with iPad in hand. FIrst thing that connects with thefloor is the corner of the iPad which by now fear had gripped to your hand so you have 6+ stone of lady pressing down on a surface area of less than 1cm square. In that situation I can easily see how the floor was dented and the iPad bent. I am surprised no one has suggested that photos of the iPad should assist the OP's case (not on here, some of PH would argue even if you had posted a video of the incident!)but with the insurance people. As suggested I think that there is a good chance they are thinking "There is no iPad".

Ah, ok - I'd misread it and didn't realise she'd fallen on top of it. I can see that now.

[jamoor]

Guy is probably on commission for money saved to the insurance company.

[Rude-boy]

onesickpuppy said:

Ah, ok - I'd misread it and didn't realise she'd fallen on top of it. I can see that now.

I know where you were coming from though and had to re-read the OP before typing to double check. That said I dropped my SGS Ace (I know, the shame, it is a POS) on my bare foot a few months back and it nearly broke the skin and cetainly gave me a good bruise and limp for a week!

[TA14]

I wonder whether the insurance guy has a laminate floor at home. If I were you I'd quite like to take him up on his lump hammer test...

[Chrisgr31]

Certainly the laminate floor in our kitchen has all manner of chips in it from where things have fallen on it, however nothing has yet had the added weight of a human behind it, so I can see the floor being damaged.

[tighnamara]

Not doubting your claim, but just wondering how your wife is after falling in top of an I pad, bending it in two and damaging a wooden floor.

[Gecko1978]

Simpo Two said:

If true it's inexcusable; the culprit should be sacked.

An HOUR?

Yeah an hour they said when she fiollowed up in the morning that they would call back at 2pm as someone had to ask her more questions it would take 30 mins. An hour later my wife on the point of tears tells me about it saying she is worried we will never get insurance now.

To give it a bit of context my wife is a bit sensative curretly as our daughter is about to start full time nurssery and she is 11 months old and my wife is find that hard.

Not the insurance companies fault etc but implying she is a criminal takes the piss.

[Gecko1978]

Thanks for all the replies I had not read them before my last post.

Re owning an Ipad...we did own one and gave it to the courier as per insurance request so they have seen it. They argue it could not have been done by falling on it. Maybe this is true and I am a frudster wanting £500 to buy a new one after the one I nicked on the tube stopped working...(note my wife provided the recipt to L&G)

As for breaking it frankly its an Ipad its not mine its hers I could have cared less at the time I never use it but she did and I offered to buy a new one but she said we have insurance for this sort of thing etc.

As for her injurys she broke all the nails on one hand but otherwise fine.

Really if they had come back and said its not covred I would have been fine with that bought her a new one (maoned about it for ages given she is not working since having the baby and then got on with things). However fact they are accusing her of a seriouse crime really gets to me. So not going to drop this.

[poo at Paul's]

Go wiht the invenstigation and just tell the absolute truth, no embelishment, no adding bits to make it more beleiveable, no taking bits out. Insurance companies have voice monitoring software which they use in such claims to identify people lying. One oif these may have been already accidently set off. I know when my wife lost a very expensive necklace (irreplacebale unformtuately) we had an appt to call them at a set time to speak to someone, and i was later told this was the interview that they monitor.

So just tell the absolute truth. If it is true, then the systme shoudl spot that and they will sort it all out.

We ended up having a home visit from a claimant specialist too, showed them all the paperwork on our item, and just told them what we knew and what we didnt know, what we'd done to try to find the item, gave the names of people who it's been reported too etc and I am pleased to say the Ins co were More than helpful in sorting what was a pretty crap situation. We never found the piece, but they paid out and I had a replica made,with a few minor changes to cover the fact it was not the original.

As others have said, if it is absolutely the truth, stick to truth and nothing else.

[deanogtv]

Carry on with the claim, this seems to be a general thing with companies nowadays. The better half recently lost her rolex watch on a night out and having it insured seperately on our home insurance to an agreed value they investigated it to the bitter end. They claimed it may have been a fake, they wanted photos of her wearing it leading up to that evening in question ect ect ect
I was livid when I found this out, thats why I pay the premium FFS not to be treated like a criminal. Anyway they paid out in the end

[Rude-boy]

deanogtv said:

Carry on with the claim, this seems to be a general thing with companies nowadays. The better half recently lost her rolex watch on a night out and having it insured seperately on our home insurance to an agreed value they investigated it to the bitter end. They claimed it may have been a fake, they wanted photos of her wearing it leading up to that evening in question ect ect ect
I was livid when I found this out, thats why I pay the premium FFS not to be treated like a criminal. Anyway they paid out in the end

I really do hope that they don't try to take this line with me should I ever have to make a claim.

I will not be amused, and nor will they by the time the fat lady sings.

Yes you have to have checks and balances to try to weed out the fraudsters (although they seem to be piss poor at that) but there is a point at which it crosses the line from proper care and attention to accusing someone of fraud which is the point at which I'd bite back.

[Simond S]

I dropped my ipad onto tiled kitchen floor. Screen broke but worst was the tilechipped. 600 x 600 ceramic tile.

I didn't claim as it was my fault, screen was repaired for £90 and I will live with the tile as to replace would mean possibly damaging under tile heating pad.

But, if you are insured for clumsiness then claim. Don't let them bully you. Seems an on going issue with insurance companies to brainwash their staff with lies described as law and threats to avoid paying out.

[KFC]

Simond S said:

I dropped my ipad onto tiled kitchen floor. Screen broke but worst was the tilechipped. 600 x 600 ceramic tile.

I didn't claim as it was my fault, screen was repaired for £90 and I will live with the tile as to replace would mean possibly damaging under tile heating pad.

But, if you are insured for clumsiness then claim. Don't let them bully you. Seems an on going issue with insurance companies to brainwash their staff with lies described as law and threats to avoid paying out.

Isn't that the whole point of having accidental damage insurance?

[northwest monkey]

KFC said:

Simond S said:

I dropped my ipad onto tiled kitchen floor. Screen broke but worst was the tilechipped. 600 x 600 ceramic tile.

I didn't claim as it was my fault, screen was repaired for £90 and I will live with the tile as to replace would mean possibly damaging under tile heating pad.

But, if you are insured for clumsiness then claim. Don't let them bully you. Seems an on going issue with insurance companies to brainwash their staff with lies described as law and threats to avoid paying out.

Isn't that the whole point of having accidental damage insurance?

Exactly. I dropped a Tom Tom onto our quarry tiled porch floor a couple of years ago. I'm not very tall so didn't drop it that far, but it was enough to crack the casing and shatter the screen. Didn't think twice about claiming to be honest - Lloyds certainly don't think twice about taking my premium every month!

Was very easy to sort out - they sent me a text message with a voucher code for Dixons. Couldn't fault them really. Yes it was my fault, I shouldn't have dropped it, but it's why I have the insurance - in case of an accident.

[alscar]

Phone back the company that appears to be trying an interesting tactic and ask for either the Complaints dept or better still someone senior to the untrained individual pretending he works in the claims depatment.
Point out that in addition to ignoring a valid Insurance claim he has now fallen foul of the TCF arrangements put in place by the FCA and see what happens next.
Obviously this is based on the circumstances being as u have told them and you being 100% genuine in your claim.

[theboyfold]

jamoor said:

Guy is probably on commission for money saved to the insurance company.

This is what I'd like to know. We work with a major company in our industry where the procurement department has bonuses based on how much they can beat us down on price. I wonder if the tactics of the guy on the other end of the phone are just part and parcel of his job. He smelt blood and money, so went after a claim that they must see a lot of.

I was doing (X) dropped my (Y) and at the same time damaged my (Z). They must see a lot of this and the risk of fines from the claimant must be well out weighed by the amount of claims they can talk people out of making.

[selym]

I don't think it would be as difficult to bend an iPad as people might think, and I'm not even powerfully built. Nor do I have a goatee.

In all seriousness, the guy that interrogated the OPs wife needs to be dealt with. He is obviously in the wrong line of work.

[phelix]

Much of the strength of an ipad is in the glass - once that breaks there's not much left to prevent it folding like a playing card.

[Engineer1]

theboyfold said:

I was doing (X) dropped my (Y) and at the same time damaged my (Z). They must see a lot of this and the risk of fines from the claimant must be well out weighed by the amount of claims they can talk people out of making.

The other thing is some people may break one thing and take the opportunity to get some other stuff fixed.

The issue is there are dodgy bds who will try it on and it means the legit claims get queried while the dodgy bds move to a new scam.