Nov
14
Halifax home insurance? Cancel it
Filed Under Uncategorized | 11 Comments
If you have a Halifax home insurance policy I suggest you cancel it because if your experience is anything like mine, you’ll feel robbed that you ever paid them a penny.
I lost my wedding ring. It felt awful. For days afterwards I’d go to touch my ring only briefly to re-experience the sensation of losing it. The only saving grace was that I lost it on my way home from a drunken night out – with my wife. imagine what she would have said if I was out with the lads.
I decided to claim on my insurance policy because I really wanted a replacement, it’s a piece of symbolism to which I’m attached, because I really wanted the same, distinctive ring and because I couldn’t afford to replace it. Thankfully, I had been paying a little extra to cover loss of our wedding rings – and extra still for accidental loss of valuable items. Or so I thought.
I phoned Halifax – or whatever it’s called now – to report it. The assistant was perfectly helpful, even if the website did advertise a disconnected phone number and even though I had to key-in my policy number and give the same details again to the person who took the call.
The next stage of the process was dealing the the loss adjusters – creatively called the Loss Management Group. They were particularly efficient and it was good to be able to email them my documents. Two days later they called me with their decision: the ring had increased in value by 10% in the two and a half years since I got married.
And then for the bad news which felt so unfair that I can only conclude that you don’t get a fair deal from the Halifax:
1. I can only buy a replacement ring from their jewellers of preference: H Samuel or Ernest Jones. Except I bought my ring in Hatton Garden and neither of their jewellers sell my ring. The closest designs they offer are rings that two people I know have.
And of course neither jeweller sell a platinum male wedding ring for £1000 so I will have to pay more.
This is wrong on a matter of principle. I didn’t buy my insurance with H Samuel. I shouldn’t be forced to buy their products in return.
2. I have to pay the excess in cash, up front, before they will give me the gift voucher. Great for their cashflow, not for mine.
3. They will give me a cash settlement so I can buy the ring I want – rather than the ring they want me to have. But I would need to accept a 40% reduction – 60% including the excess – which would leave me in no position to buy a replacement.
And at the end of all of this, with someone else’s choice of wedding ring and paying an extra £250 for the privilege, the cost of my insurance will increase by 30% to reflect the loss of my no claims bonus.
I always found it hard to trust insurance companies – if you gained more than you paid they would go bust. But they can’t all be as bad as the Halifax policy.
No related posts.
I am currently going through a similar issue with Halifax.
The loss adjuster has ironically LOST my reciepts !!! due to this, they will only issue me with vouchers.
I will NEVER use Halifax insurance again, and will make it my lifes work to damage the company’s reputation at every professional oportunity.
Thanks Dave.
Have you found an insurance company you can trust?
Thank you for the great tip, i was thinking about you the other day. Are there any forums that you recommend I join ?
None that I know of. Sorry. I suggest searching Omgili
I work in insurance and to be fair, it clearly states in their policy information that vaubles are covered up to £1500 per item up to around 7k i think it is in total. you are lucky that you are even covered at all the fact that the claims comes under personal possessions away from the home which alot of insures as standard only cover up to £500 if that!
The fact that your ring has gone up in value is not Halifax’s fault and again states in there t&c’s that increases on valubles are not covered.
to be fair, you got the 1k back to get a ring, would you rather have that an nothing at all? either that or dont drink!!
Ste,
On the details I’m not sure you’re right; I had additional cover for the rings specifically.
The wider point, and the challenge for the sector more widely is that policies are very complex and customer expectation is high. If I buy a policy and find I’m not covered, I take my anger out on the company.
It’s therefore incumbent on the insurance company to ensure that the policy can be easily understood and communicated. The current situation does neither buyer nor seller any good.
And you are right that I did get a proportion of the ring back in cash. But it would have been better value for me not to have a policy at all.
Hi Matt,
I am going through the exact same situation now. Luckily, I lost my ring in the home whilst my wife was around! All financial services companies have to TREAT CUSTOMERS FAIRLY and this is assessed by the regulator (Currently still the FSA) and the financial services ombudsman.
Simply type TCF into Google and look at the Financial Services Authority page.
Now I suppose it is now (in my case) up to Direct Line to prove they are treating me fairly. LMG came round today and said my wedding ring was worth £1,500. I have refused to go to the high street jewelers claim the quality of the rings there were not up to standard. As a group they have offered to make a replica – I can only imagine the hassle that is going to be.
About to approach direct line now – Ps. What did you finally do?
Phil.
Ditto about the treatment of customers.
After the refusal of my claim and deliberate misinterpretation of a loss adjuster’s report, I need to cancel the policy and go the ombudsman route.
I am struggling to even cancel my policy, since they will not pick up the phone. have been on an 0845 number twice today at huge expense, for over 10 minutes each time, and can they be bothered to answer; apparently not. tell me that is not deliberate when they have routed you through to the cancellation line.
(I can understand their cancellations team being busy, given the way they treat customers – but there should be a ring me back option if they are not giving reasonable wait times.)
Emma
I would agree that Halifax offer a really crap service and are even crappier at treating customers fairly. I would recommend that people look at alternative insurers.
I find that More than are an excellent insurance company although to be accurate the practice of farming out work to “loss adjusters” by all insurance companies (including More than) can result in a very variable experience ranging from awful to wonderful.
I am currently trying to claim for water damage caused by my neighbours haveing a leek. Just been told the following:
1) I may not be able to claim against neighbours insurance as they tried to stop the leek ASAP.
2) I will have to pay £450.00 access if I wish to go ahead with the claim.
When I said that the damage was caused by my neighbours leek, why should I be punished and made to pay for the damage I was told “thats the way it is”. And when I told them that my dining room (room with water damage) is decorated with the same wallpaper as my living room I was told that “they don’t think both rooms would be covered”.
When I said that I have been sold a CRAP policy, I was told that everything probably hadn’t been explained to me fully, “no kidding” I said only to be left with silence.
I’m now waiting for the adjusters to contact me to arrange a convenient time to call round and check the damage. If I don’t get a satisfactory outcome I will definatley be cancelling.
Have you got any proof that the item was worth over £1000? Have you got any proof that the item was purchased from hatton garden?
If you dont, then you are lucky that they are even paying you out and I as a jeweller can say that you got paid out very well for your ring if you got £1000 as platinum rings were easily replaceable within that value at various jewellers in 2009. It is only in the last 6-12months that they have skyrocketed.