Home Insurance contents question - Outbuilding defintion

[KTMsm]

alfabeat said:

NFU are hard to beat. Fantastic service and no quibble cover, but you do pay for it!

My father thought the same - he had a non working farm

Building caught fire from someone else's car - not covered
Brick outbuilding collapsed - not covered
Tree fell in road - not covered

They all appeared to be covered from casual reading of the policy but not when you drilled down into the small print

[alscar]

Apologies if I have missed it but are u saying there is maximum any one item limit that has been exceeded on at least the trail bike ?
If so that will limit their payout.
As alluded to by others if your garage only was £30k are you happy that the rest of the actual house possessions is £ 220k or less ?
If so then no issue but if not then the LA may suggest you are under insured and apply average to whatever the loss quantum for the garage is.
Hopefully you will still end up with more than the £5k the LA suggested though.
Best of luck.

[nigelpugh7]

alscar said:

Apologies if I have missed it but are u saying there is maximum any one item limit that has been exceeded on at least the trail bike ?
If so that will limit their payout.
As alluded to by others if your garage only was £30k are you happy that the rest of the actual house possessions is £ 220k or less ?
If so then no issue but if not then the LA may suggest you are under insured and apply average to whatever the loss quantum for the garage is.
Hopefully you will still end up with more than the £5k the LA suggested though.
Best of luck.

That’s a good point, but I don’t think that the total of our normal contents/possessions would ever be more than £250’000.

The higher value items we own, such as my watch collection, and my wife’s jewellery all have separate insurance policy’s for them, as indeed does my professional camera equipment.

Our other high value items such as Apple IMacs, Apple MacBook Pros and IPads are also covered on a separate tech policy too.

The main item damaged in the garage that is a higher value is my Montesa Trials bike, Which as a pure off road bike that is not road registered cannot be covered by a traditional motor vehicle policy.

There are some specialist companies who will provide theft cover for them only, as they do not have an ignition key or any form of locks, but it does seem focused on not getting them stolen from the back of your car or trailer as an example.

[alscar]

With the separate policies as you say hopefully the potential for under insurance is minimised.
We have a quad bike which is included under our Homeowners policy but only for fire and theft.
Again not Road registered.
We did have to specifically mention and get endorsed onto the policy.

[Deesee]

nigelpugh7 said:

That’s a good point, but I don’t think that the total of our normal contents/possessions would ever be more than £250’000.

The higher value items we own, such as my watch collection, and my wife’s jewellery all have separate insurance policy’s for them, as indeed does my professional camera equipment.

Our other high value items such as Apple IMacs, Apple MacBook Pros and IPads are also covered on a separate tech policy too. Why insure them separately?

The main item damaged in the garage that is a higher value is my Montesa Trials bike, Which as a pure off road bike that is not road registered cannot be covered by a traditional motor vehicle policy.

There are some specialist companies who will provide theft cover for them only, as they do not have an ignition key or any form of locks, but it does seem focused on not getting them stolen from the back of your car or trailer as an example.

The issue there is you have an upper limit on the common insurance policy, and are the high value items are included/excluded on a separate policy.

Your iPads/Macs etc will be covered you don’t need a separate policy for these, unless they are over the floor limit?

You can’t double insure items, Halifax will argue that, if you think it’s 250k + the nice stuff…

I don’t want to cause problems/issues as happy to help but I think you’ve pressed the easy buttons on the meerkat..(or other)..

Tbh I’m still struggling at 250k contents..

[K87]

With modern All Risks policies the first place I look is what is Excluded, not what it covers.

Edited by K87 on Saturday 2nd September 09:42

[nigelpugh7]

Deesee said:

The issue there is you have an upper limit on the common insurance policy, and are the high value items are included/excluded on a separate policy.

Your iPads/Macs etc will be covered you don’t need a separate policy for these, unless they are over the floor limit?

You can’t double insure items, Halifax will argue that, if you think it’s 250k + the nice stuff…

I don’t want to cause problems/issues as happy to help but I think you’ve pressed the easy buttons on the meerkat..(or other)..

Tbh I’m still struggling at 250k contents..

Thanks for the feedback.

What is it that you are struggling with re the £250k contents? That it’s too low?

I can’t recall what we used as a decision making criteria on the insurance company to choose, but it certainly wasn’t using any compare the market type companies.

We have had this policy with the Halifax from the first time we took out the mortgage on this home which was almost 20 years ago now.

We have never looked to change the insurance provider and just renewed it each year, admittedly not really studying what was covered and not covered that closely.

The combined insurance premium is about £1000 per year for both the contents and the buildings cover, and both of them seem to provide a good level of cover which in my eyes more than covers any costs of replacement or repairs should the worse happen.

Are you suggesting that we need to review both the providers and the total insured limits/maximum amount?

[nigelpugh7]

alscar said:

With the separate policies as you say hopefully the potential for under insurance is minimised.
We have a quad bike which is included under our Homeowners policy but only for fire and theft.
Again not Road registered.
We did have to specifically mention and get endorsed onto the policy.

Yep with hindsight I should have declared the Montesa Trials bike to make sure it was on the policy as an item of over £2000 in value, one of those things I forgot to do and i am now going to have to pay the cost.

[nigelpugh7]

An update on the situation with the contents claim.

We have no had an email stating that as we have rejected the original offer of £5K, they have raised our complaint to the claims handling investigation department.

The real problem here is that they have stated that it is now going to take 8 weeks to investigate the disputed claim.

Jesus, 8 bloody weeks! We will be Lucy to see a resolution of this matter before November.

Are all insurance companies this bad?

[K87]

nigelpugh7 said:

An update on the situation with the contents claim.

We have no had an email stating that as we have rejected the original offer of £5K, they have raised our complaint to the claims handling investigation department.

The real problem here is that they have stated that it is now going to take 8 weeks to investigate the disputed claim.

Jesus, 8 bloody weeks! We will be Lucy to see a resolution of this matter before November.

Are all insurance companies this bad?

No it shouldn't be that bad.

Send an email back with the word COMPLAINT at the top of the body of the email.

Thank them for their response, point out that you feel that 8 weeks is an unreasonable length of time to reach a resolution when the basis of their offer does not appear in the policy document and we should have been able to have dealt with this matter during the Loss Adjusters visit.

If you are of such a disposition you may point out that you were surprised that the Adjuster did not take notes or photographs and his attitude was take it or leave it without reference to the policy coverage.

[shtu]

nigelpugh7 said:

Jesus, 8 bloody weeks! We will be lucky to see a resolution of this matter before November.

2024

They're all bad when it comes to paying-out, universally.

We have an insurance claim ongoing from January 2022, are currently suing the insurers and likely to be in court over the next couple of months.

Do any of your home or motor policies have legal expenses cover?

[Deesee]

nigelpugh7 said:

Deesee said:

The issue there is you have an upper limit on the common insurance policy, and are the high value items are included/excluded on a separate policy.

Your iPads/Macs etc will be covered you don’t need a separate policy for these, unless they are over the floor limit?

You can’t double insure items, Halifax will argue that, if you think it’s 250k + the nice stuff…

I don’t want to cause problems/issues as happy to help but I think you’ve pressed the easy buttons on the meerkat..(or other)..

Tbh I’m still struggling at 250k contents..

Thanks for the feedback.

What is it that you are struggling with re the £250k contents? That it’s too low?

I can’t recall what we used as a decision making criteria on the insurance company to choose, but it certainly wasn’t using any compare the market type companies.

We have had this policy with the Halifax from the first time we took out the mortgage on this home which was almost 20 years ago now.

We have never looked to change the insurance provider and just renewed it each year, admittedly not really studying what was covered and not covered that closely.

The combined insurance premium is about £1000 per year for both the contents and the buildings cover, and both of them seem to provide a good level of cover which in my eyes more than covers any costs of replacement or repairs should the worse happen.

Are you suggesting that we need to review both the providers and the total insured limits/maximum amount?

Id say the 250k is far to low, think of anything (if you moved) that could move with you, Electronics, Furniture, Clothing, soft furnishings, let alone your Bikes and model cars etc..then jewellery..

On the basis you have 30/40k of items in your garage, £250k for the remainder of the property does seem low.

You do need to carefully review the policy and exclusions. As the issue you now have is they are not willing to cover cost of replacement, as you have assumed the policy would cover you. Being underinsured can be a major issue in the event of a claim, as they would argue you have not been paying the correct premium for their risk.

At renewal, yes you will need to carefully review your items, especially higher value as they will generally be excluded unless the are nominated type items.

We are with Admiral and there cover is 'unlimited; however with the contents any item worth more than £1000 needs to be separately listed, so we have purchase receipts, photographs, and description all listed on a cloud file. & they have a raft of exclusions, so separate policies for sports equipment and the like.

With your other reply for the 8 weeks, thats the regulators deadline before you can send it to the ombudsman, they have the description incorrect so you should get a higher offer than 5k, and faster than 8 weeks... (hopefully)..

[Mr Pointy]

nigelpugh7 said:

An update on the situation with the contents claim.

We have no had an email stating that as we have rejected the original offer of £5K, they have raised our complaint to the claims handling investigation department.

The real problem here is that they have stated that it is now going to take 8 weeks to investigate the disputed claim.

Jesus, 8 bloody weeks! We will be Lucy to see a resolution of this matter before November.

Are all insurance companies this bad?

It took nearly eight weeks to get a simple cracked window unit replaced after a fire in a neighbour's shed. The fire happened in July 2022 & severely damaged the roof of another neighbour's house: I'm still looking at the scaffolding & they have been in other accomodation for over a year now.

Nothing seems to happen quickly when it comes to house insurance.

[Austin_Metro]

Condi said:

It also says outbuildings are covered, so I think the OP is all good. Loss adjustors are often independent and work on behalf of, but not for, the insurance co, so it's possible he is mistaken, and it is up to Halifax to suggest what the solution is.

Loss adjusters are not independent. They work for the insurer (whether employed directly or indirectly) and their job is to reduce or extinguish your claim. They are not the policy holders friend.

[KTMsm]

shtu said:

They're all bad when it comes to paying-out, universally.

Thankfully I've only had a few claims but they were all processed really fast and efficiently

Dish washer leak - they were happy to replace all the flooring throughout

Shed theft - happy to supply new for old and equally happy to give a cash settlement

Far better than car insurers IME

[nigelpugh7]

A bit of an update on our situation.

We are still at a stalemate with the contents insurance claim.

We have been chasing them almost daily, but get the same answer, which is it can take up to 8 weeks to resolve a claim dispute when an offer has been made.

This brought up another talking point, at no time have we had any formal offer or written communication which could be classed as an offer or payment, settlement or otherwise from the contents insurance company ( Halifax ).

We also have not received any official report relating to the contents insurance loss adjusters visit and his findings.

By contrast the buildings insurance (RSA - Nationwide) have been exemplary.

They produced a full report, documented actions, assigned multiple companies to do the work, the electricians , the garage door repair company, and the cleaning company to remove the smoke damage and soot from the whole house.

For each of these services they have asked for a quote, got one, made an offer and issued the payment.

We shall of course be reviewing the providers at renewal time, and bringing the contents and buildings cover all under one main provider.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

shtu said:

They're all bad when it comes to paying-out, universally.

Absolute bks. The Halifax were brilliant when I had a leaking pipe, fast and efficient.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Austin_Metro said:

Loss adjusters are not independent. They work for the insurer (whether employed directly or indirectly) and their job is to reduce or extinguish your claim. They are not the policy holders friend.

The loss adjuster Halifax insurance appointed on my claim told me that there was now way they could just re-paint the effected area as I'd suggested, as it would look odd, so they'd have to paint a much bigger area to get a good result. He also pointed out minor damage that I hadn't noticed and said they'd have to do that work also. Basically, he turned my fairly big claim into a much bigger claim, because he wanted the job done to a much higher standard than I was asking for!

[Dingu]

K87 said:

nigelpugh7 said:

An update on the situation with the contents claim.

We have no had an email stating that as we have rejected the original offer of £5K, they have raised our complaint to the claims handling investigation department.

The real problem here is that they have stated that it is now going to take 8 weeks to investigate the disputed claim.

Jesus, 8 bloody weeks! We will be Lucy to see a resolution of this matter before November.

Are all insurance companies this bad?

No it shouldn't be that bad.

Send an email back with the word COMPLAINT at the top of the body of the email.

Thank them for their response, point out that you feel that 8 weeks is an unreasonable length of time to reach a resolution when the basis of their offer does not appear in the policy document and we should have been able to have dealt with this matter during the Loss Adjusters visit.

If you are of such a disposition you may point out that you were surprised that the Adjuster did not take notes or photographs and his attitude was take it or leave it without reference to the policy coverage.

8 weeks is the max time for a complaint before it automatically goes to the ombudsman so that would be a waste of time.

[Mr Pointy]

nigelpugh7 said:

By contrast the buildings insurance (RSA - Nationwide) have been exemplary.

They produced a full report, documented actions, assigned multiple companies to do the work, the electricians , the garage door repair company, and the cleaning company to remove the smoke damage and soot from the whole house.

For each of these services they have asked for a quote, got one, made an offer and issued the payment.

We shall of course be reviewing the providers at renewal time, and bringing the contents and buildings cover all under one main provider.

I am with them & when I had a small claim they were the same - I got a quote & they agreed it & paid out - they chased me to get the work sorted out. I've just renewed with them