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WARNING - Insurance Nightmare

DRD

DRD

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Oct 26, 2014
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Newark
Guys

I know that @ianw has helped folk out with insurance. I am in discussions with his team now so hopefully they can sort me out too.

The purpose of this post is to warn folk that Outbuildings cover is being slashed by insurance companies.

I was stunned to receive my renewal notice this year. I have never claimed on home insurance. My insurance broker previously gave me unlimited cover for items in outbuildings up to the level of my overall contents cover. Swinton Insurance Brokers (a sizeable national chain) could not now get any cover in excess of £2,500 for outbuildings. They do not care what is in there, they do not care how secure you might have made it. £2,500 is your lot. The guy at Swinton told me that this issue was regularly cropping up with renewals and they were losing a lot of customers

So for those of you with games/ tools/ bikes in outbuildings - just double check that your policies are giving you the cover that you think they are.

Besides Ian, have folk on here found any decent insurers with proper cover limits pls ?
 
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A lot of companies dont like insuring anything outside of the main building (and even limit the max amount of a claim on a "connected "garage) as i found out when looking about. I think of the 2 or 3 companies i looked at (Mainstream ones) a couple of years ago, the most they would go to was £1500.

I have my house contents and Pin cover Via @ianw 's Team :)
 
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I'm insured with AXA through a broker called 'APlan'
The policy is called 'AXA Extra' which gives loads of cover for anything in any of my out buildings. I've checked specifics like expensive tools, expensive bikes and Pinballs and they are fine with everything I have asked about. I don't even have to list them on my policy
 
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Thanks for the lead. I was with axa too ! Fingers crossed that your broker may still be able to get this as axa's online offering has meagre outbuilding limits
 
Marks and Spencer. Unlimited including away from home at shows. Not cheep but not insanely expensive.
 
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After many, many hours answering the same questions, here is what I learned.......

Outbuilding cover on standard internet type policies can be pathetic ie 1.5k.

When you then deal with human brokers, the cost goes up but it opens up the door to bespoke policies that involve human interaction with actual underwriters. If you have a few pinballs in an outbuilding you may well have to go through the exercise twice within the same firm - as the standard department may well pass you onto the posh department as INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE SH1T SCARED OF OUTBUILDINGS. The posh department has no problem with outbuildings

If you call the NFU Mutual (aka National Farmers Union), a nice mid 20s farmer's daughter from 2 villages away comes out to poke around your house and garden. She asks questions about guns, furs, tapestries, land, staff etc. All very quaint. Very nice people to deal with. They understand that folk keep stuff in outbuildings. I love dealing with mututally owned businesses. In my case, the second best bet

@ianw 's team was clearly the best bet, so I have joined the gang that insures with him. In addition to sensibly priced cover, he also includes a tailored policy that covers taking games to shows. If you can't be ****d messing about, just go straight to these guys

As ever, you only know whether an insurance company is any good when you come to claim. But on the basis that I know where Ian lives and I know what his son looks like, I am not concerned
 
This will be very relevant to me soon. @ianw can you get in touch with me and let me know all about this please ?

cheers

kev
 
Just looked at my building and contents insurance from the halifax. No where can I see where there is a any limitation on monies for my outbuildings or what is in them. Anyone else got this insurance have any ideas ?

Cheers

kev
 
Halifax is max limit of £1500 per item claimed unless previous declared and agreed (stated?) on the insurance schedule.
 
Moonraker said:
Halifax is max limit of £1500 per item claimed unless previous declared and agreed (stated?) on the insurance schedule.
Click to expand...
where does it state that - do you know ? and if it does I assume I can register any item ie each of my pins with a value whether it is in the house or the shed ???

Cheers

kev
 
I know from having to make a claim a few years ago and yes it is clearly stated in the insurance paperwork. Thankfully the item claimed was that amount so I didn't loose out. I don't have anything of higher value in the house.

If you want to insure pinballs @ianw is your man.
 
Oh and yes I do know Ian and yes I ought to be on a retainer for the amount of people I have pointed in his direction...! :D
 
Moonraker said:
Halifax is max limit of £1500 per item claimed unless previous declared and agreed (stated?) on the insurance schedule.
Click to expand...
So isnt it just a case of registering the items with them what ever they maybe - and this is then irrelevant whether in house or shed. Is that correct ?

Cheers

kev
 
Yes a case of registering item over 1,500. Don't know about shed's I don't have one.... I use an industrial unit instead! :thumbs:

You're best phoning them and asking. Don't forget that they price will go up in relation to the number of registered items.
 
@newdos

Take care here. Insurance is a vital part of the uk economy, but it is a minefield

These guys will use any excuse to get out of paying you. When I did my accounting exams, a small part was about law. There are innumerate cases involving insurance companies being taken to court for not paying out. As a consequence, there are loads of legal precedents that result from these insurance cases that date back to the 19th century

I thought my wife had travel insurance. Her internal flight in africa was delayed. So she missed her uk connection. It transpired that she was only covered for such delays on her outbound journey for example. And that was on the dearest of the three policies that company offered.

If unclear, phone up your insurer. Get them to tell you where the relevant matter is covered in your insurance for documentation so that you can read it with your own eyes

If you pay a few hundred quid for cover, it will be littered with exclusions. Fail to lock the door _ they will not pay.

If you pay over a grand or so you get much better cover. But obviously it starts getting bloody expensive. Fail to lock the door - they do pay.

It is highly unlikely anything bad will happen to your games. Good luck.
 
David, you're being OTT and should stop generalising. The typical perception that insurers 'don't pay out' is simply that people never read documentation, including their conditions, warranties or exclusions. It's unrealistic to expect everything to be covered with no conditions. People are stupid, including those that don't secure their home properly.

My Dad died whilst he was on holiday in Majorca, he'd been to the doc before he went and doc said OK to go, but he never told this to his Travel insurance company; Aviva. When he died over there and we were facing massive costs to bring him back, Aviva picked up the tab, even though they could easily have excluded all cover on the basis they were not told of his potential health issue. They made this decision on the fact had they been told, they would probably have still covered as Doc said OK to go. However, again they could have got out of paying anything.

This was a few years ago, not looking for sympathy or anything, just giving you an example of the opposite. Rather than ramp up the fear to everyone saying 'insurance guys will use any excuse to get out of paying you' , you just need to check your insurance details properly and ask the questions if unsure. If you can't be ars*d, then use a broker and ask them to highlight all this for you and earn their commission. You can't have it all ways....

@ianw is the way to go anyway. His team are extremely helpful and the policy is tailored to this hobby... but there is documentation, you need to read it and take note.
 
Out of interest what risks are people most worried about? Given what a pain in the **** it is to get games into my garden I can't say I'm really bothered about the risk of theft. Flood and fire seems far more likely. Storm damage from next doors trees could also be an issue.
 
I had a water tank upstairs - it leaked into the lounge below. Luckily, seconds before I left for work for the day I spotted drops of water from the ceiling giving me time to call a plumber etc. Baywatch is in the lounge, so could have been a disaster.
 
The average scroat thief likely wouldn't know how to collapse a pinball machine or have the time/method to move/store it.... but may be possible to a more organised criminal if you're away on holiday, few neighbours etc. with time available to remove and a hidden market to sell to.

Malicious damage, fire or flood is far more likely I would say. I know of one incident where rainwater/roof came in destroying a couple of machines.
 
I was talking to a fruitie collector once.
Said some Scrote broke in and smashed open all his coin doors. They were all empty.
So I always leave the keys in my game.
 
Pinball machines are hard to steal so you would be astonishingly unlucky to have your collection stolen.

I think more likely risks are electrical fire, malicious damage, a neighbour's tree snapping in the wind landing on the shed, roof blowing off in a strong gale etc

@JMP I know you are a good egg and that there are plenty of good eggs in the insurance industry. I dated a girl for 10 years who worked in insurance. Just like there are good eggs in investment banking, good eggs in the divorce solicitor industry, good eggs who are parking attendants ........

My ex worked in the posh insurance industry, for Chubb Masterpiece then AIG. Besides what my exams taught me and what she taught me - I have also had four occasions to deal with the claims departments of insurance companies in the last 20 years

1. Car crash 1. The car in front of me was stationary, as a car further up the road was turning right. The car behind me was stationary. A transit van did not stop and caused a 4 vehicle incident. It was independently witnessed by a doctor waiting to cross the road, the police attended, statements were taken. Yet the transit driver's insurers maintained that we had already had a crash before the transit van joined the party. This took months of admin and threats from various insurers and injury solicitors and only got sorted the day before the court hearing. Only then were me and the other two innocent drivers exonerated.

2. Car crash 2. My car had broken down in central leeds, it was not even moving. National Breakdown was attending it. A bus then clipped my car. I was mid accounting exams, the car was a junker. I simply did not care. I did not claim. I got two witnesses' details (National Breakdown and a third party motorist. 9 months later, out of nowhere the bus tried to claim from me !. The first thing my insurer did was send me a bill as it said my 3 year no claims bonus was now invalid - despite my having protected it on its third anniversary, as this incident was in year 2. It also said that as the "claim" was 9 months old it was just going to settle it, despite it only being made in the past week. After passing my accounting exams I had moved to a group 17 car, so this loss of no claims was a big hit. Eventually the two witnesses' statements meant I was exonerated and my no claims was reinstated

3. Travel insurance payout for abandoned holiday. Caused by a serious accident a few weeks before departure. This went through fairly and smoothly

4 My wife's travel delay, as I mentioned above

Maybe I am not representative. But I still encourage everyone to be very careful with insurance companies
 
I hate insurance, never trust em - when the volcano erupted in Iceland, we got stranded in Arizona, finally got flight to Barcelona instead of London, then ended up taking 4 days via rail and overnight ferry to get back. Well over a grand out of pocket plus missed work. Insurance washed their hands of it - act of God apparently, seriously their fricking argument was the sky pixie did it sorry!!!!..,, motherducking bandits [emoji26]

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk
 
So you tarnish every company on all aspects of insurance for ever more? Bit like buying a crap car and hating all cars afterwards.
 
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